Understanding Paul: The Existential Perspective 9783161626296, 9783161626302, 316162629X

Table of contents :
Cover
Title
Preface
Contents
Abbreviations
Understanding Paul
Chapter 1: The Questions of Pauline Hermeneutics
1.1 Thesis of the Book
1.2 Hermeneutical Construction
1.3 Hermeneutics of Understanding
1.4 Hermeneutic Prejudice
1.5 The Historical Paul
1.6 The Hermeneutical Paul
1.7 Biblical Scholarship, Theology and Philosophy
1.8 My Hermeneutical Assumptions and Prejudices
1.9 Perspectives and Outlook
Chapter 2: The Starting Points: Existence, Truth and Word
2.1 Human Existence
2.2 The Structures of Dasein
2.3 Paul’s Existence – Our Dasein
2.4 Dasein and Meaning
2.5 Truth
2.6 The Word of Truth
2.7 Truth and Revelation
2.8 Existential Hermeneutics
Existence Unbound
Chapter 3: The Human Predicament: Sin as Existential Category
3.1 The Art of the Question
3.2 The Human Predicament
3.3 In the Beginning
3.4 The Great Disruption
3.5 Sin and Sins in Biblical and Post-Biblical Judaism
3.6 Sins in Paul
3.7 Sin in Paul
3.8 Sin and Sins in Romans 7
3.9 The Distinction between Sin and Sins
3.10 Sin as Ontological-Existential Category (Existenzial)
3.11 Sins as Action
3.12 Conclusion
Chapter 4: Messiah, Sin and Torah
4.1 Jesus the Messiah
4.2 Paul: Apostle of the Messiah
4.3 The Messiah and Forgiveness of Sins
Gospels and Acts
Other New Testament Writings
4.4 Interpreting the Death of Jesus
Atonement: Yes or No?
What Does the Messiah Atone?
4.5 Sin and Torah
1. Paul affirms Torah
2. Sin precedes Torah
3. Sin is Dead apart from Torah?
4. Torah marks Sins
5. Torah Cannot give Life
6. The Works of Torah
7. The End of Torah is the Messiah
8. The Law of the Messiah
4.6 Conclusion
Chapter 5: Soteriology 1: The Means of Salvation
5.1 The Requirement of Correlation
5.2 The Means of Salvation
5.3 Cause in Philo of Alexandria
5.4 The Means of Salvation in Paul
5.5 Death
5.6 Resurrection
5.7 The Meaning of Salvation
Grace
Justification and Righteousness
Righteousness, Justice, Fairness
5.8 Reading Paul Philosophically
Chapter 6: Soteriology 2: The Mode of Salvation
6.1 The Mode of Salvation
6.2 The Nature of Faith
6.3 Faith and Epistemology
6.4 Faith and the Forgiveness of Sins
Understanding Existence
Chapter 7: Two Endpoints: New Existence
7.1 Endpoint One: A New Lordship
7.2 Endpoint Two: A New Creation
7.3 The Church
7.4 Baptism and the Lord’s Supper
Baptism
The Lord’s Supper
7.5 Repairing Sins
7.6 Authentic but Fragmentary Existence
Chapter 8: The Redemptive Life
8.1 Ontology and Ethics
8.2 No Moral Perfectionism
8.3 The Law of the Messiah
8.4 The Other
8.5 Eros
8.6 In the World
8.7 The World to Come
Conclusion
Chapter 9: Summary and Inferences
9.1 Ontology
9.2 Understanding
9.3 Correlation
9.4 Plight
9.5 Solution
9.6 Existence
9.7 Alterity
9.8 Conversation
9.9 Ending
Postscript
Chapter 10: Notes on Perspectives
10.1 Perspectives – So What?
10.2 All Perspectives are Culturally Biased
10.3 The Beginning of the New Perspective
10.4 Sin in the New Perspective
10.5 The Messiah in the New Perspective
10.6 Existential Muddle and New Perspective Fantasy
Chapter 11: The Way of Paul: Fragmentary Existence
11.1 Unresolved Questions
11.2 The Beginning of the Journey
11.3 The First Station on the Way: Discoveries
11.4 The Second Station on the Way: Clarification
11.5 Third Station on the Way: Understanding Paul
11.6 The Penultimate Station: Understanding Existence
Bibliography
Index of Biblical References
Index of Names
Index of Subjects

Citation preview

Peter Frick

Understanding Paul

Peter Frick

Understanding Paul The Existential Perspective

Mohr Siebeck

Peter Frick, born 1961; Professor of Religious Studies, United College (formerly St. Paul’s University College), University of Waterloo, Canada.

ISBN  978–3-16-162629-6 / eISBN 978–3-16-162630-2 DOI 10.1628/978–3-16-162630-2 The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbib­ liographie; detailed bibliographic data are available at http://dnb.de. ©  2023 Mohr Siebeck Tübingen, Germany.  www.mohrsiebeck.com This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form (beyond that permitted by copyright law) without the publisher’s written permission. This applies particularly to reproductions, translations and storage and processing in electronic systems. The book was typeset by Gulde-Druck using Garamond typeface, printed on non-aging paper in Tübingen, and bound by Nädele in Nehren. The cover was designed by Iris Farnschläder in Hamburg. Cover illustration: Window of St. Martin’s Church in Neuffen, Germany. Photo: Peter Frick. Printed in Germany.

To

Voss (Uli Frick) brother friend existentialist

Eine ontologische Spezifizierung des Geschaffenen unabhängig davon, daß Gott Versöhner und Erlöser ist, der Mensch aber Sünder und Begnadigter, gibt es nicht. Alle metaphysischen Ideen von Ewigkeit und Zeitlichkeit, Sein und Werden, Leben und Sterben, Wesen und Erscheinung müssen in christlicher Seinslehre an den Begriffen vom Sein der Sünde und der Gnade gemessen bezw. neu gewonnen werden. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Akt und Sein (DBW 2, 150)

There is no saving ontology, but the ontological question is implied in the question of salvation. Paul Tillich (Biblical Religion and the Search for Ultimate Reality, 85)

Preface All life is hermeneutical; every book is hermeneutical. This book is no different. For many years I have been thinking about Paul, reading and studying his letters. My interest in Paul was, however, not focussed on the details of exegesis or the key theological questions of the day. I was also not initially interested in the debate between the old and new perspective, but for reasons I have delineated in chapter 10, engagement with the new perspective became unavoidable. All along, what has evoked my keen interest in Paul was the combination of the apostle’s enduring (and controversial) legacy in the Christian tradition,1 the interest of a good number of continental philosophers in his teaching2 and the theological questions that emerged in that conversation for my own existential quest. Over time, the problem that surfaced and that became the prism through which I attempted to make intelligible what Paul taught, was trying to figure out the question to which Jesus was the answer. If Jesus is indeed the answer, then what was the real issue, the quintessential question and the manifest predicament that his life “answered”? If Jesus was the solution, then what kind of crisis did his life have to solve? For years I had my reservations about the colloquial pronouncement that “Jesus came to die for our sins.” The more I engaged in the study of Paul, hermeneutics, philosophy and theology, the clearer became my vision that Jesus did not have to die a violent death for our sins. Rather, he died for our sin. There is a substantial difference in the fine distinction between sin (singular) and sins (plural.) In fact, I argue that this distinction is crucial for a robust understanding of Paul. The core of this book is the attempt to make intelligible why this differentiation is not a matter of exegetical insight or perspectives where one 1  Cf. Jürgen Becker, Paulus. Der Apostel der Völker. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck) 1989, 1: Paul’s “Wirkungsgeschichte kann kaum überschätzt werden” (Paul’s history of impact can hardly be exaggerated). 2  For a first attempt of understanding Paul vis-à-vis contemporary philosophy, cf. Peter Frick (ed), Paul in the Grip of the Philosophers. The Apostle and Contemporary Continental Philosophy. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2013.

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Preface

position is to be preferred over another. For every human being, the existential structure of sin is not open to exegetical or theological debate. It is a fixed determinant, based on our ontological predispositions. This is the insight I gained from Heidegger and which I attempt to work out in these pages drawing on the hermeneutics of Gadamer and, to a lesser extent, the theological positions of Tillich and Bonhoeffer. Given that the aim of this book is to make intelligible a framework for how we can understand Paul, and that means understand the apostle existentially, I will make the case that sin understood as an ontological-existential category (Existenzial in the tradition of Heidegger) must categorically correspond to the solution, offered in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The specific task for us is to make intelligible how there is a formal categorical correspondence between sin understood ontologically and the Messiah’s death and resurrection. This correspondence is basic to the further distinction between the means and the mode of salvation. I will also briefly outline what my ontological reading of Paul means in existential terms of a life in faith as a “new creation” and in terms of an ethics for the other. In many a preface in a book on Paul, it has become a commonplace to warn the reader of possible oversights of important works on the apostle, given the plethora of studies in the field. I know that this is the case in this monograph. My thinking about Paul and the ideas presented in these pages are the fruit of my intellectual quests and not in the first place a debate with secondary literature. Nonetheless, any intellectual pursuit does not happen in a vacuum but in the context, to use a term Gadamer likes, of a Gespräch. For such conversation I thank my philosopher-friend Prof. Ricardo Quadros Gouvêa. He not only read and critiqued chapters 1–4, but given his keen sense of theology and philosophy, offered insights that helped me over the years to clarify my own quest for understanding Paul. My deepest gratitude extends also to the staff at Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, especially to Henning Ziebritzki and Katharina Gutekunst in the early stages of the book, and to Tobias Stäbler and Susanne Mang for the professional and exemplary work of producing this work. I also wish to thank my colleagues Richard Myers and John Abraham for their support and interest in this book. Last but not least, the book is dedicated to an existentialist par excellence – my brother. Words cannot do justice to describe the bond between us. It is all about existence in the deepest and fullest sense of Dasein. Waterloo/Tobermory, Easter 2023

Contents Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VII Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XIII

Understanding Paul . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Chapter 1:  The Questions of Pauline Hermeneutics . . . . . . . . . 3

1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9

Thesis of the Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Hermeneutical Construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Hermeneutics of Understanding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Hermeneutic Prejudice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 The Historical Paul . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 The Hermeneutical Paul . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Biblical Scholarship, Theology and Philosophy . . . . . . . 30 My Hermeneutical Assumptions and Prejudices . . . . . . . 38 Perspectives and Outlook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Chapter 2:  The Starting Points: Existence, Truth and Word . . . . 44

2.1 Human Existence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 2.2 The Structures of Dasein . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 2.3 Paul’s Existence – Our Dasein . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 2.4 Dasein and Meaning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 2.5 Truth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 2.6 The Word of Truth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 2.7 Truth and Revelation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 2.8 Existential Hermeneutics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

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Contents

Existence Unbound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Chapter 3:  The Human Predicament: Sin as Existential Category 75

3.1 The Art of the Question . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 3.2 The Human Predicament . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 3.3 In the Beginning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 3.4 The Great Disruption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 3.5 Sin and Sins in Biblical and Post-Biblical Judaism . . . . . . 82 3.6 Sins in Paul . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 3.7 Sin in Paul . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 3.8 Sin and Sins in Romans 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 3.9 The Distinction between Sin and Sins . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 3.10 Sin as Ontological-Existential Category (Existenzial) . . . 102 3.11 Sins as Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 3.12 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

Chapter 4:  Messiah, Sin and Torah . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 4.1 Jesus the Messiah . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 4.2 Paul: Apostle of the Messiah . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 4.3 The Messiah and Forgiveness of Sins . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 Gospels and Acts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 Other New Testament Writings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 4.4 Interpreting the Death of Jesus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 Atonement: Yes or No? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 What Does the Messiah Atone? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 4.5 Sin and Torah . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144 1.  Paul affirms Torah . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146 2.  Sin precedes Torah . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 3.  Sin is Dead apart from Torah? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 4.  Torah marks Sins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148 5.  Torah Cannot give Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 6.  The Works of Torah . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150 7.  The End of Torah is the Messiah . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 8.  The Law of the Messiah . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152 4.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 Chapter 5:  Soteriology 1: The Means of Salvation . . . . . . . . . . 157 5.1 The Requirement of Correlation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158 5.2 The Means of Salvation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162

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5.3 Cause in Philo of Alexandria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 5.4 The Means of Salvation in Paul . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168 5.5 Death . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 5.6 Resurrection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179 5.7 The Meaning of Salvation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185 Grace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186 Justification and Righteousness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 Righteousness, Justice, Fairness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 5.8  Reading Paul Philosophically . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196 Chapter 6:  Soteriology 2: The Mode of Salvation . . . . . . . . . . 198

6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4

The Mode of Salvation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198 The Nature of Faith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201 Faith and Epistemology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206 Faith and the Forgiveness of Sins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213

Understanding Existence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217 Chapter 7:  Two Endpoints: New Existence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219 7.1 Endpoint One: A New Lordship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.2 Endpoint Two: A New Creation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.3 The Church . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.4 Baptism and the Lord’s Supper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Baptism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Lord’s Supper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.5 Repairing Sins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.6 Authentic but Fragmentary Existence . . . . . . . . . . . .

219 223 230 234 234 237 239 250

Chapter 8:  The Redemptive Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255

8.1 Ontology and Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.2 No Moral Perfectionism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.3 The Law of the Messiah . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.4 The Other . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.5 Eros . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.6 In the World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.7 The World to Come . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

256 261 262 267 273 277 282

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Contents

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285 Chapter 9:  Summary and Inferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287

9.1 Ontology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.2 Understanding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.3 Correlation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.4 Plight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.5 Solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.6 Existence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.7 Alterity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.8 Conversation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.9 Ending . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

287 289 291 292 293 294 295 296 297

Postscript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299 Chapter 10:  Notes on Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301

10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 10.6

Perspectives – So What? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . All Perspectives are Culturally Biased . . . . . . . . . . . . The Beginning of the New Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . Sin in the New Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Messiah in the New Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . Existential Muddle and New Perspective Fantasy . . . . . .

302 304 306 310 314 316

Chapter 11:  The Way of Paul: Fragmentary Existence . . . . . . . 320

11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 11.5 11.6

Unresolved Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Beginning of the Journey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The First Station on the Way: Discoveries . . . . . . . . . . The Second Station on the Way: Clarification . . . . . . . . Third Station on the Way: Understanding Paul . . . . . . . The Penultimate Station: Understanding Existence . . . . .

320 321 322 324 325 327

Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Index of Biblical References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Index of Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Index of Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

329 345 352 355

Abbreviations AB ABD BhTh Bultmann  Handbuch CCSP

Anchor Bible Anchor Bible Dictionary Beiträge zur historischen Theologie Christof Landmesser (ed). Bultmann Handbuch. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2017 James D. G. Dunn (ed), The Cambridge Companion to St. Paul. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2003. DBWE Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English, 17 volumes. Edited by Wayne W. Floyd Jr., Victoria J. Barnett and Barbara Woj­ hoski. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 1996–2014. EKK Evangelisch-Katholischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament GA Gesamtausgabe GW Gesammelte Werke HUTh Hermeneutische Untersuchungen zur Theologie JBL Journal of Biblical Literature LCL Loeb Classical Library NIDNTTh New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology Paulus Friedrich W. Horn (ed). Paulus Handbuch. Tübingen: Mohr  Handbuch Siebeck 2013 RGG4 Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 4th ed., Tübingen RPT Religion in Philosophy and Theology WUNT Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament ThHwbAT Theologisches Handwörterbuch zum alten Testament ThWNT Theologisches Wörterbuch zum neuen Testament TSAJ Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism UTB Uni-Taschenbücher ZNW Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft ZThK Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche

Understanding Paul

Chapter 1

The Questions of Pauline Hermeneutics Wer macht wen lebendig, der Ausleger den Text oder der Text den Ausleger? Ernst Fuchs1

1.1  Thesis of the Book At the outset of this book, I want to be clear and direct about the thesis of the study. It can be stated in one straightforward sentence: “For the apostle Paul, Christ/the Messiah is the answer to the predicament of sin, whereas sin is understood as an ontological-existential category.”2 The task before us is to unpack this sentence in detail and bring to light the claims embedded in it. This thesis is grounded in the ontological reality and phenomenological observation that there is a vast difference between sin (singular) and sins (plural). The solution to this double-edged predicament must be a categorical correlation to both sin and sins. In our analysis, the answer to sin and sins is not the same; it cannot be the same. For ontological reasons, we can therefore only speak of salvation in Paul’s understanding when we consider that there must be a correspondence between sin and salvation on the same categorical level. In short, if sin is ontological, then salvation must offer an ontological solution. My thesis thus entails the claim that a non-ontological and non-existential understanding of sin in Paul is deficient and therefore significantly limits, even falsifies, our overall understanding of the apostle. The fundamental assumption that sin is ontological starts with Paul’s own ideas in his letters and leaves deep traces in the reality of every human being, ancient and modern. For every living being, the ontological force of 1  Ernst Fuchs, “Ereignis und Tatsache – die paulinische Aporie,” in Marburger Hermeneutik, Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck) 1968, 205. 2  Since I work in both English and German, here is the thesis statement in German: Für Paulus ist der Christus/Messias die Antwort auf das Problem der Sünde, verstanden als ontologisch-existenziale Kategorie.

4

Chapter 1:  The Questions of Pauline Hermeneutics

sin has inevitable existential implications. In a broad sense, both Paul and the contemporary interpreter of Paul are trying to figure out how thinking about God and his presence in the world square up with the experience of the human condition in a universal scope, good and evil. To put it quite colloquially, in bumper sticker theology: “If Jesus is the answer,” then what is the question? To what issue, problem, reality, plight or predicament is Jesus the answer according to Paul, and by extension, the Christian tradition? Specifically, it will be my task to make intelligible how the first part of the thesis statement, that the Messiah is the answer to sin, corresponds to the second part, namely the claim that sin must be understood in this ra­ ther elusive expression ontological-existential category. In chapter 2 we will discuss the details and depth of what it means to say that sin is primarily an ontological category and, therefore, has existential implications. For now, it suffices to point out that the expression “ontological-existential category” is my translation of a key concept in Being and Time of Martin Heidegger, the early Heidegger before the Kehre (turn). Heidegger employed the word Existenzial as a designation of universal ontological structures. The translators of Being and Time rendered Heidegger’s noun Existenzial as existential(e) 3 while William Barret refers to it as existentialia.4 Whenever I employ the expression “ontological-existential category” or the abbreviated form “ontological category” or “existential category” I am referring to Heidegger’s ontological understanding of Existenzial. Any understanding of Paul must reckon with the apostle’s passionate commitment to figure out how Jesus, the Christ, belongs to the history, presence and future of the Jewish people and, by Pauline extension, to all of humanity. It is basic to Paul’s thinking that somehow Christ as the Messiah is the answer to a human and cosmic plight. In that vein, in any comprehensive study of Pauline thought, the role of the Messiah must be a central question and one would expect that this topic receives front-page coverage, so to speak.5 But since the question of the Messiah always entails 3  Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. New York: Harper and Row 1962, cf. 537. Henceforth, all references to Being and Time, as well as to Sein und Zeit, are according to page number and not according to paragraphs. 4  William Barrett, Irrational Man. A Study in Existential Philosophy. New York: Anchor Books 1990, 220. 5 Cf. Larry Hurtado, “Paul’s Christology,” in CCSP, 185–198. Hurtado rightly opens his study with these words, 185: “Paul’s beliefs about Jesus were at the centre of his religious commitment, and any attempt to understand Paul’s religious thought (or ‘theology’) has to make central what he believed about Jesus Christ.”

1.1  Thesis of the Book

5

the question in what ways he may be thought of as the answer to the plight, one would also expect that a broad study of Paul includes the topic of sin as an important starting point and corollary, if not central topic. Curiously, in many Pauline studies the question of sin does not receive the critical emphasis it requires. 6 Even worse, a clear delineation between sin and sins and what that distinction means for Pauline soteriology is largely misunderstood.7 The thesis statement also makes clear that I see sin as the problem to which the Christ/Messiah is the answer. Again, for the sake of clarity, let me point out that I do not see the topic of sin in Paul as a mere side issue or possibly an afterthought because the apostle worked from solution to plight.8 I am of the view that conceptually as well as existentially the apostle shaped his understanding of theology and life from solution to plight but also from plight to solution. His own hermeneutical circle was not linear but dynamic: Paul reflected on the anthropological dilemma of human existence while at the same time his anthropology was “the reflex of his soteriology.”9 What that means we will have to work out in detail as we progress. In this study, following a discussion of hermeneutics, I will address the issue of sin (plight) and then move on to discuss how sin understood as an existential category (Existenzial) corresponds to Paul’s understanding of Jesus as the Messiah (solution). In other words, the methodological pathway I am employing is an ontological-existential analysis of life, Dasein in Heidegger’s terminology, regarding sin, sins and salvation. The specific 6  This is the case with many works on Paul including the new perspective on Paul. See for example N. T. Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said: Was Paul of Tarsus the Real Founder of Christianity? Oxford: Lion; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 1997; N. T. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God. Christian Origins and the Question of God, vol.  4. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2013. For a more detailed discussion of Wright’s view of sin in Paul, see chapter 10 below. A notable exception is E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism. A Comparison of Patterns of Religion. Philadelphia: Fortress Press 1977. San­ ders understands that Paul’s “basic distinction” is “between the plight as transgression and as bondage to sin” and that “they went together in Paul’s own view,” 509. Another exception is Terence L. Donaldson, Paul and the Gentiles. Remapping the Apostle’s Convectional World. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 1997. He notes that Paul’s convictional “starting point” includes “the universality of sin,” 131. 7  Even studies on Paul who do discuss the issue of sin do not do so in the language suggested here. Not surprisingly, as far as I know, there is no study of Paul’s thought that has employed the phrase that “sin is ontological-existential” or an Existenzial. See however the recent study by Steffi Fabricius, Pauline Harmatiology: Conceptualisation and Transferences. HUTh 74. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2017. I will discuss this work below in chapter 3. 8  This depiction goes back to Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 443. 9 Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 499, 510.

6

Chapter 1:  The Questions of Pauline Hermeneutics

questions we will explore are the hermeneutical foundations for interpreting Paul theologically and philosophically, the categorical correspondence between sin and the Messiah, the nature and meaning of soteriology, the function of faith, the question of Torah and the grounding of ethics and the redeemed life. To repeat, all these questions will be examined through the lens of existential hermeneutics, some more directly than others.

1.2  Hermeneutical Construction The kind of questions that must precede the interpretation of Paul’s life and letters are hermeneutical questions. It is crucial at the outset of our study to insist that reflection on hermeneutical questions is not optional for the interpreter of Paul. For the conclusions we draw about Paul, and the overarching understanding we gain of him as a Jewish-Christian thinker, pivot to a great extent on the hermeneutical conjectures that are implicit in every scholar’s work on the Pauline corpus. A first task, therefore, before one engages in the attempt to understand Paul, is to become self-conscious of and to clarify one’s hermeneutical assumptions that are operative on various levels of interpretation. The objective of this first chapter is to articulate as precisely as possible the hermeneutic presuppositions that ought to be considered for every attempt to interpret Paul. Clarity in terms of hermeneutical principles is decisive for a reading and understanding of Paul that does justice both to the apostle in his Jewish-Christian context and the contemporary reader in his/her Sitz im Leben. But before we turn our attention to the hermeneutical complexities that face us as Pauline interpreters, let me first illustrate by way of a metaphor what I am trying to make intelligible throughout this book. For the present purpose, let us employ the image of building a house as an analogy for hermeneutical construction, a metaphor we will come back to repeatedly. Acts 18:3 informs us that Paul was a tent-maker (σκηνοποιός). For our immediate purpose of illustration, let us say that he was roughly the equivalent of a construction worker. In one sense we may compare Paul’s life, thought and theology to a house that he built during his lifetime. The apostle himself uses the metaphor of building a house. In 1 Cor. 3:10 he expounds: “according to the grace of God given to me, like a wise master builder (σοφὸς ἀρχιτέκτων) I laid a foundation (θεμέλιον), and someone else is building on it. Let each builder choose with care how to build on it.” Many have built a house on a Pauline foundation, and we are now looking back at these houses after nearly 2000 years, realizing that different houses

1.2  Hermeneutical Construction

7

have different Pauline features. There is, in the language of the metaphor, the issue of a suitable piece of land, a foundation that holds the entire superstructure and of course a myriad of additional features that make that house a distinctive “Pauline” house. As we begin to construct our house, we scrutinize how Paul built his. We take note of the foundation, the building materials, the layout of the house, the functionality of the design, the aesthetic appeal and so on. As we consistently work away at our house, we recognize, however, that we do not merely want to copy Paul in every detail of his design. In many of our decisions we do not want to give up our own creative architectural intuitions. And so we modify Paul’s design – both in terms of design and building materials – and thus complete our construction. When all completed, we stamped our house with an unmistakable Pauline flavour while at the same time giving it our own personal touch. We did not merely copy Paul’s house; we built our own custom house. But there is more to the metaphor. The foundation that we took over is Paul’s Judaism. This is crucial. In our metaphor of building our house, the importance of the foundation is twofold. First, the structure of the foundation is decisive for the durability of the house. As Jesus had already made clear before Paul,10 any compromise in terms of the foundation will eventually reveal itself as a structural deficit of the entire edifice. In the language of the metaphor, the foundation of Paul’s house is his unwavering commitment to Judaism, especially his unshakable conviction that there is but one God. Second, even though the foundation is crucial for the structural integrity of the whole house, very often the foundation of the house is only partially visible or not at all. On the sure foundation of Judaism, Paul added a new layer of a superstructure that he himself, I am arguing, saw also as belonging to Judaism, even though he had no precedent for this phase of the construction. In terms of his theological construction, it was the question of the role of the Messiah (cf. 1 Cor. 3:11 there is no foundation (θεμέλιον) other than Jesus the Messiah) and by extension the questions of Torah, Israel, Gentiles, new life etc. Even more: hermeneutical construction does not allow us to merely copy. We do not simply build a replica of Paul’s house in our own time. We make decisions to change, add, delete, improve design and materials, all because Paul himself did not, or could not, complete what he himself had 10  Cf. Matt. 8:24–25: “everyone, then, who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded on rock.

8

Chapter 1:  The Questions of Pauline Hermeneutics

started. In other words, Paul could only build a certain house given the materials and resources that he had available to him. He could not do more than that. But we are in a different position. We can and must do more than what Paul did. Why is this so? Paul was not purely a historical figure and his writings relics for a biblical museum. His letters are not just documents of a now defunct understanding of the world and therefore rather irrelevant. The challenge and the task are precisely in working out an understanding of Paul’s thought and life that does justice to both his unique and non-duplicable historicity and our contemporary existential reality. Even though we are speaking in the picture of building our house, for us such an undertaking is incredibly complex and requires a sober amount of clarity from the very beginning of our construction project.

1.3  Hermeneutics of Understanding What is hermeneutics and what specifically is a hermeneutic of understanding? By way of definition, I do not understand the term hermeneutics only “as the formal rules controlling the practice of exegesis, but as something concerned with the total process of understanding.”11 Paul Ricoeur gives it an existential spin when he says that “hermeneutics is the very deciphering of life in the mirror of the text.”12 In other words, when I am using the term hermeneutics I am not referring to methodology, such as form criticism, textual criticism, redaction criticism, literary criticism, discourse analysis, syntactic or semantic markers or any other method or current New Testament approach, whatever it may be. The upshot of this is that I do not understand hermeneutics as if its main purpose is to illuminate only a specific text, or segment of a text, or the meaning of a semantic domain with a particular approach, theory or method.13 Important as various approaches may be in their own right, I am not primarily concerned 11 

Bernard C. Lategan, “Hermeneutics,” in ABD 3, 152. Paul Ricoeur, Essays on Biblical Interpretation. Philadelphia: Fortress Press 1980, 53. On Ricoeur’s hermeneutic see Kathrin Messner, Paul Ricoeurs biblische und philo­ sophische Hermeneutik des Selbst. Eine Untersuchung aus theologischer Perspektive. HUTh 67. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2014. 13  Although I appreciate the approach by Bernard J. F. Lonergan, Method in Theology, Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1971, I think it is overall too rigid. Nonetheless, Lonergan does emphasize understanding when he notes, 336: “The aim of systematics in not to increase certitude, but to promote understanding.” 12 

1.3  Hermeneutics of Understanding

9

with exegetical details, but “the total process of understanding,” that is to say how exegetical minutiae fit into the picture of the much larger whole of understanding Paul’s thought, both textually and existentially. Moreover, and more important, while incorporating some of the approaches mentioned above, hermeneutics goes far beyond the application of a specific method to a specific text. In a comprehensive sense, hermeneutics constitutes the total communicative process by which understanding of human existence comes to light. I mostly follow Hans-Georg Gadamer14 who characterizes Schleiermacher’s “wesentlichen Grundzug des Verstehens” (most foundational aspect of understanding) in these terms: “der Sinn des einzelnen [ergibt] sich immer nur aus dem Zusammenhang, mit­ hin letztlich dem Ganzen” (individual sense emerges always from context, ultimately from the whole).15 That is to say that the hermeneutical task is anchored in the dynamic between part and whole, but always in the direction that the whole must make intelligent the part and not the part shedding some light on the whole. For the process of understanding, the whole is more significant than the parts. For our interpretation of Paul, this means that an understanding of Paul’s thought in its width and complexity is more important than mastering exegetical details. Schleiermacher’s view that understanding comes ultimately from the context of the whole thus always places exegetical particulars vis-à-vis Pauline theology in a subordinate position, and does so in a way that both objective and subjective aspects of interpretation find their legitimate place in understanding the whole.16 Gadamer is quick to add that Schleiermacher’s “Grundzug des Verstehens,” namely the tension between part and whole, does not only apply to formal matters such as grammar, exegesis, logic etc. but is equally true for the psychological dynamic of the interpreter. He notes that every intellectual construct (Gedankengebilde) is an instantiation of a specific moment within the total context (Totalzusammenhang) of a person’s life.17 Put differently, the interpreter always finds him/herself in the bind that every attempt at understanding is coloured by one’s psychological disposition and contemporary context (see section 1.4 below). But as Gadamer notes, there is also a logical quandary in the “Grundzug des Verstehens”: “logisch gese14 Cf.

the recent study on Gadamer by Matthias Baum, Die Hermeneutik HansGeorg Gadamers als philosophia christiana. Eine Interpretation von “Wahrheit und Methode” in christlich-theologischer Perspektive. HUTh 80. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2020. 15  Hans-Georg Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode. Grundzüge einer philosophischen Hermeneutik. Hermeneutik I. GW 1. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 5th ed, 1986, 193–194. 16 Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode I, 296. 17  Cf. Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode I, 194.

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Chapter 1:  The Questions of Pauline Hermeneutics

hen [ist] hier ein Zirkel… sofern das Ganze, von dem aus das einzelne verstanden werden soll, ja nicht vor dem einzelnen gegeben ist” (logically speaking there is a circle… inasmuch as the whole, through which the part should be understood, does not precede the whole).18 The problem presents itself in the issue that the interpreter always moves in both directions in the hermeneutic circle. The movement goes from whole to part, but also from part to whole. In Gadamer’s words: “Grundsätzlich gesehen ist Verstehen immer ein Sichbewegen in solchem Kreise, weshalb die wiederholte Rückkehr von dem Ganzen zu den Teilen und umgekehrt wesentlich ist” (principally, understanding is always a movement in such a circle; therefore the continual return from the whole to the part and the reverse is significant).19 Elsewhere he says: “So läuft die Bewegung des Verstehens stets vom Ganzen zum Teil und zurück zum Ganzen” (the movement of understanding is always from whole to part and returns to the whole).20 The power of the hermeneutic circle, according to Gadamer, lies then in the open-ended dialectic of repeatedly entering and leaving the circle, and thereby constantly gaining new insights and perspectives. Put differently, the hermeneutical circle becomes progressively larger. But the dynamic, shifting and growing of the hermeneutical circle entails its own limit. Gadamer maintains that the whole is always relative and not absolute because it will never be in completion. But this then inextricably entails that there is always an intrinsic “Vorläufigkeit und Unendlichkeit” (provisionality and infinity) 21 to every hermeneutical circle and interpretation. The preliminary and open-ended nature means that there is always the possibility for another nuance of interpretation or even a completely novel interpretation that like previous understandings grows out of the dynamic of part and whole. Though it may seem so, this inconclusive dynamic of the hermeneutical circle is not its weakness but its beauty and strength.22 Rather than being stuck in a static circle of interpretation, it allows for the fluid interaction between text and interpreter, ancient history and modern context, religious tradition and ideological matrix, void and eros, objectivity and prejudice, nihilism and meaning, life and death. 18 Gadamer,

Wahrheit und Methode I, 194. Wahrheit und Methode I, 194. 20 Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode I, 296. 21 Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode I, 194; cf. 274. 22  Cf. the excellent discussion of the open-ended, fragmentary nature of history and hermeneutics in Lategan, Bernard C. “History, Historiography and Hermeneutics,” in Pokorný and Roskovec (eds). Philosophical Hermeneutics and Biblical Exegesis, 204– 218. Lategan discusses, among others, Walter Benjamin (“his goal is to show history, not to narrate it. He wants to display events, not to explain them,” 209) and Paul Ricoeur. 19 Gadamer,

1.3  Hermeneutics of Understanding

11

Hermeneutic understanding, finally, is at core the attempt to understand human existence by moving on the hermeneutical circle as outlined above. I am employing the semantic domain “understanding, to understand” in the sense it was suggested by Wilhelm Dilthey. Here I am drawing on the now classic distinction made by Dilthey between explanation and understanding and his hermeneutic theory that seeks to balance the insight of analytical detail, what for Schleiermacher is the part (for example, the specific details of Pauline exegesis) with an understanding of the whole (for example, Paul’s theology as a complex system of thought).23 Gadamer, leaning on Schleiermacher, suggests that “nur im Rückgang auf die Entstehung von Gedanken lassen sich diese wirklich verstehen” (only by going back to the origin of thoughts can these be genuinely understood).”24 But the key here is precisely that a reconstruction of previous ideas, for example the theology of Paul, aims at understanding and not explanation. Though overlapping, a difference between the two is that explanation examines the “what” while understanding looks at the “why” of statements. The distinction becomes also clear in another way. Gadamer himself claims that “was verstanden werden soll, ist in Wirklichkeit nicht ein Gedanke als ein Lebensmoment, sondern als eine Wahrheit” (that which is understood is in reality not a thought as a moment in life, but a truth).25 In other words, it is not a fact, an explanatory detail etc. but the reality behind these facts as an expression of life itself that constitutes understanding. Only then can a fact become truth. Paul Ricoeur puts it this way. The interpretation of Pauline texts “and the interpretation of life correspond and are mutually adjusted.”26 In other words, understanding is always operative in the dynamic between text and life. For this reason, Ricoeur speaks of an existential side to Paul’s own life when he notes that the apostle attempts “to decipher the movement of his own existence in the light of the Passion and Resurrection of Christ.”27 This deciphering is nothing else but a hermeneutic of the “exegesis of human existence.”28

23  Cf. Wilhelm Dilthey, “Die Entstehung der Hermeneutik,” in Gesammelte Schriften. Stuttgart: B. G. Teubner 1964, vol.  5, 332–336. But according to Jens Zimmermann, Recovering Theological Hermeneutics, An Incarnational-Trinitarian Theory of Interpretation. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic 2004, 105, apparently Spener made this distinction before Dilthey. 24 Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode I, 189 (my emphasis). 25 Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode I, 189. 26 Ricoeur, Essays on Biblical Interpretation, 52. 27 Ricoeur, Essays on Biblical Interpretation, 52. 28 Ricoeur, Essays on Biblical Interpretation, 52.

12

Chapter 1:  The Questions of Pauline Hermeneutics

Still another way of saying this is that the end point of understanding is living in the truth. But what that very notion – truth itself – means in an existential interpretation needs to be shown in the next chapter. Critical for our purpose is to hold on to Gadamer’s conception of a universality of hermeneutics that is predicated on Heidegger’s notion that Verstehen is an existential category (Existenzial).29 If so, then Verstehen as an act has an existential-ontological structure (see below 2.2). Put differently, as human beings, we cannot not seek understanding and meaning because our very ontological human make-up drives us toward the search for meaning.30 Gadamer articulates the existential element of understanding poignantly when he says: “die Fähigkeit des Verstehens [ist] eine grundlegende Ausstattung des Menschen, die sein Zusammenleben mit anderen trägt und insbesondere auf dem Wege über die Sprache und das Miteinander des Gespräches vonstatten geht. Insofern ist der universale Anspruch der Hermeneutik ausser allem Zweifel” (the ability for understanding is a basic human characteristic, which carries life with others and, by means of language, establishes intimacy in conversation. Thus, the universal claim of hermeneutics is beyond all doubt).31 In view of the existential element of understanding, to repeat, to understand Paul is not to explain what his background was, what he said grammatically, theologically and ethically, what he inherited from his Pharisaic background, what his changing conviction were and so on. To be sure, these things do matter, and we are not entitled to disregard them. Quite to the contrary. But these matters alone do not lead us to an understanding of Paul, nor do they lead to our contemporary understanding of the apostle. For the significance of the distinction between explanation and understanding is that the hermeneutical process aims at nothing less than the

29  Michael Kirwan, “The Limits of Interpretation. The Gadamer – Habermas Conversation and its Implications for Philosophical Hermeneutics,” in Pokorný and Roskovec. Philosophical Hermeneutics and Biblical Exegesis, 68–82. Cf. Heidegger, Being and Time, 182: if we take “understanding as a fundamental existentiale, this indicates that this phenomenon is conceived as a basic mode of Dasein’s Being.” So also Hans-Georg Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode. Hermeneutik II, Ergänzungen, Register. GW 2. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 2nd ed, 1993, 331 speaks of “Heideggers Vertiefung des Begriffs des Verstehens zu einem Existenzial, d. h. zu einer kategorialen Grundbestimmung des menschlichen Daseins” (Heidegger’s deepening of the concept of understanding to an existential, i.e. to a categorical basic determination of human Dasein). 30  Cf. Martin Šimsa, “The Question of Understanding and its Criteria in Conservative and Critical Hermeneutics,” in Pokorný and Roskovec. Philosophical Hermeneutics and Biblical Exegesis, 59–67. 31 Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode II, 330.

1.3  Hermeneutics of Understanding

13

total quest for understanding our contemporary existence as Pauline interpreters. While we draw on the theology of the historical Paul (see below 1.5), we do so in view of our contemporary existence – this is all that we can do. It cannot be emphasized enough that the claim to understand Paul in contemporary perspective is not merely a tautological statement, but a claim that understanding – and correspondingly, meaning – can only be constructed existentially and theologically in the present. In the history of existential thinking, Søren Kierkegaard was the first to emphasize the significance of contemporaneity. “The past is not reality – for me,” insists Kierkegaard, but “only the contemporary is reality for me.”32 He goes on to contend that “historical Christianity is galimatias [i.e. non-sense] and unchristian confusion” because “true Christians… in each generation are contemporary with Christ” and paradoxically “His earthly life possesses the eternal contemporaneousness.”33 Kierkegaard, like Dietrich Bonhoeffer34 after him, quite clearly understood that Christianity is not about a retrieval of the historical Jesus or the historical Paul, but the appropriation of the disclosedness of truth 35 in one’s contemporary life and situation. From a philosophical point of view, Giorgio Agamben takes Kierkegaard a step further. He comments on the “special relationship with the past” that we human beings have: “Contemporariness inscribes itself in the present by marking it above all as archaic. Only those who perceive the indices and signatures of the archaic in the most modern and recent can be contemporary. Archaic means close to the arkhē, that is to say, the origin.”36 Agamben thus affirms that we cannot ignore the origin or the past, but that we must be mindful in how we retrieve the past in the present. Contemporariness is strictly speaking not a matter of chronological negotiation between past and present, but “more precisely, it is that relationship with time 32  Søren

Kierkegaard, Training in Christianity, translated by Walter Lowrie, edited by John F. Thornton and Susan B. Varenne. New York: Vintage Books 2004, 58–59. 33 Kierkegaard, Training in Christianity, 59. 34  In the preface to Discipleship, the theme of the book is expressed in three crucial questions: “What did Jesus want to say to us? What does he want from us today? How does he help us to be faithful Christians today?”; cf. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English, vol.  4), edited by Geffrey B. Kelly and John D. Godsey, translated by Barbara Green and Reinhard Krauss. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2001, 37 (emphasis added). 35  See Kierkegaard, Training in Christianity, 182–186, on how he understands Christ to be the truth within the distinction of truth as a way of being or result. 36 Giorgio Agamben, Nudities, translated by David Kishik and Stefan Pedatella. Stanford: Stanford University Press 2011, 17.

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Chapter 1:  The Questions of Pauline Hermeneutics

that adheres to it through a disjunction and an anachronism.”37 Following Nietzsche to some degree, Agamben argues that the contemporary person “firmly holds his gaze on his own time so as to perceive not its light but rather its darkness.”38 He is not in any way suggesting that the contemporary has a negative or nihilistic outlook on life, but quite to the contrary, is grounded in alertness, even though “contemporaries are rare… [they] do not allow themselves to be blinded by the lights of the century and so manage to get a glimpse of the shadows in those lights, of their intimate obscurity.”39 Contemporary understanding is thus predicated on a critical hermeneutic that seeks to unmask the hiddenness characteristic of our search for meaning. Giorgio Agamben sees such contemporariness in the apostle Paul when he announces in Kierkegaardian fashion that “the contemporariness par excellence… is messianic time, the being-contemporary with the Messiah.”40 Agamben argues that Paul employed the expression the “time of the now,” Jetztzeit,41 in Greek ὁ νῦν καιρός (cf. Rom. 3:26). As Roland Boer argues, for Agamben the idea of Jetztzeit is likely a combination of several New Testament passages, such as 1 Cor. 7:1, Gal. 6:10, Eph. 5:16 and Col. 4:5.42 Still, Agamben’s point is that Paul’s perception of time as messianic Jetztzeit is “chronologically indeterminate” because it “has the singular capacity of putting every instant of the past in direct relationship with itself.”43 For our interest in understanding Paul, this entails that we must be open to the un-hiding of the past in the sense that the past is not mere history or chronology but a challenge to the existential reality of our contemporariness, or in Agamben’s term, our own now-time. Hans-Georg Gadamer also perceptively describes the issue of contemporariness and adds a detail that clarifies Kierkegaard and Agamben, a point that also applies to the understanding of Paul. Gadamer remarks that Kierkegaard characterized “die Wahrheit der christlichen Verkündigung”

37 Agamben,

Nudities, 11 (original emphasis). Nudities, 13. 39 Agamben, Nudities, 14. 40 Agamben, Nudities, 18. 41 On Jetztzeit, see also Giorgio Agamben, The Time that Remains. A Commentary on the Letter to the Romans, translated by Patricia Dailey. Stanford: Stanford University Press 2005, 143. 42  Roland Boer, “Paul of the Gaps. Agamben, Benjamin and the Puppet Player,” in Peter Frick (ed), Paul in the Grip of the Philosophers. The Apostle and Contemporary Continental Philosophy. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2013, 57–67, here 64. 43 Agamben, Nudities, 18. 38 Agamben,

1.3  Hermeneutics of Understanding

15

(the truth of Christian proclamation) as Gleichzeitigkeit.44 The term Gleichzeitigkeit (Danish: samtidighed) literally means “same time-ness” in the sense of the concurrence of times. The idea is that “der Abstand der Vergangenheit in Gleichzeitigkeit aufgehoben wird” (the distance to the past is taken up into concurrence).45 This happens when the horizon of the past is melted with the horizon of the present. In this way the historical valence of the past is not negated while the emphasis is brought into the present horizon of understanding.46 However, for Gadamer we do not merely engage a process of reconstructing the past for the present, but allow that the past addresses us as that “das wahr sein will” (want to be true), as that which “unmittelbar als wahr anspricht” (addresses us unconditionally as true).47 In nuce, any understanding of the past, including the apostle Paul, is predicated on “was wir immer schon tun, indem wir sind” (what we always do because we are),48 in other words the existential categories within which we are able to construct the meaning of the past in the present. We are, before we interpret. We interpret in the present. So far, we may hold on to the following: Gadamer quite appropriately characterizes hermeneutics as “Kunst und nicht ein mechanisches Verfahren” (art and not a mechanical procedure).49 We may say more precisely that hermeneutics is the art of understanding50 our existence contemporarily and not as the technical application of specific methods.51 With regard 44  Hans-Georg Gadamer, “Was ist Wahrheit?,” in Wahrheit und Methode. Hermeneutik II. GW 2, 44–56, here 55. Gadamer first introduced Gleichzeitigkeit in Wahrheit und Methode I, 126. For a discussion of Gleichzeitigkeit see also Baum, Die Hermeneutik Hans-Georg Gadamers als philosophia christiana, 64–67. 45  Gadamer, “Was ist Wahrheit?,” 55. 46  In a later essay Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode II, 471, says that the concept of Gleichzeitigkeit “[ist] gerade nicht Allgegenwart im Sinne der historischen Vergegenwärtigung.” 47  Gadamer, “Was ist Wahrheit?,” 55. 48  Gadamer, “Was ist Wahrheit?,” 55. 49 Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode I, 194 (original emphasis). 50  Gadamer does indeed use the expression that hermeneutics is “Kunst des Verstehens,” cf. “Vom Zirkel des Verstehens,” in Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode. Hermeneutik II, GW 2. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 2nd ed, 1993, 57–65, here 57. In this regard it is not coincidental that Anslem defined theology as faith seeking understanding (fides quaerens intellectum) and that Bultmann gave the four volumes of his collected essays the title Faith and Understanding (Glaube und Verstehen). For both thinkers, faith is trust in God to be sure, but the task of understanding faith points to its content and substance. 51  See also Ingolf U. Dalferth, Die Kunst des Verstehens. Grundzüge einer Hermeneutik der Kommunikation durch Texte. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018 and Günter Fi-

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Chapter 1:  The Questions of Pauline Hermeneutics

to Paul, as we shall see, hermeneutics is the art of understanding Paul’s life and thought in all its fragmentary complexities and literary52 dispositions vis-à-vis our own attempts to understand our existence within its contemporary boundaries and opportunities.

1.4  Hermeneutic Prejudice No hermeneutic construction of understanding the apostle Paul happens in an objective vacuum.53 This is to say that every Pauline interpreter has either an implicit or explicit hermeneutical constellation of assumptions, even if the term hermeneutics is not used to describe one’s approach to Paul. What a scholar brings to the interpretation of Paul may be called presuppositions. But no set of scholarly hermeneutical presuppositions are objective. With respect to Pauline thought, this is to allege that every person who reads Paul and wishes to understand him brings a set of assumptions to the letters that are unique to the interpreter. These are things such as age, gender, social location, education, religious convictions, intellectual ability, ideological predilections, personal experience, emotional needs and so on. In other words, every “Paulusinterpretation stellt ein Modell dar, das auf der Basis von Vorentscheidungen entworfen wurde” (every interpretation of Paul constitutes a model which was designed on the basis of preliminary decisions).54 Every model of interpretation is unavoidably constructed out of the prejudiced assumptions – conscious and unconscious conceptions, categories, values – that the interpreter brings to Paul with his or her unique individuality which itself is situated, to repeat Ga­ damer, in the Totalzusammenhang of a person’s life.55 Every reader of Paul gal, Verstehensfragen. Studien zur phänomenologisch-hermeneutischen Philosophie, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009. 52  Cf. Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode I, 270–274 who, following Heidegger, says the following regarding the interpretation of texts, 273: “Wer einen Text verstehen will, ist vielmehr bereit, sich etwas von ihm sagen zu lassen. Daher muss ein hermeneutisch geschultes Bewusstsein für die Andersheit des Textes von vornherein empfänglich sein” (Rather, those who want to understand a text are prepared to let it tell them something. Therefore, a hermeneutically trained awareness of the otherness of the text must be open-minded from the outset). 53  See for example the essay by Rudolf Bultmann, “Is Exegesis without Presuppositions Possible?,” in Bultmann, New Testament and Mythology, selected, edited and translated by Schubert M. Ogden. Philadelphia: Fortress Press 1984, 145–153. 54  Udo Schnelle, “Methodische Probleme der (Re)konstruktion der Theologie aus den erhaltenen Paulusbriefen,” in Paulus Handbuch, 277. 55  Cf. Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode I, 194.

1.4  Hermeneutic Prejudice

17

is embedded in a complex set of personal and cultural presuppositions that inform his or her reading and understanding of Paul. No reader can escape these preconditions of reading. The upshot of all of this is that every commentator is inescapably drawn into the hermeneutical circle; no construal of Paul is free of preconditions and, hence, there is no such thing as a neutral, objective or conclusive understanding of Paul. To take the above point further, it is crucial to note that strictly speaking it may even be problematic to speak of hermeneutical presuppositions. For, as Gadamer has convincingly argued, there are no such things as neutral assumptions; all presuppositions, however “objective” the interpreter may think of them, are always what he calls “prejudices,” Vorurteile.56 Gadamer claims that the term prejudice received its negative connotation only with the Enlightenment. Originally, a prejudice was true to its etymology and suggested a pre-judgement before the final judgement or definitive conclusion. A prejudice was thus synonymous with a preliminary stage or an early verdict along the way and in view of the conclusion of a an argument or train of thought.57 Thus up to the Enlightenment, a prejudice – from Latin praeiudicium (Vorentscheidung) – was not necessarily a “falsches Urteil” (an incorrect judgment) but could have both negative and positive connotations. But post-Enlightenment and post-Cartesian thought recast a “Vorurteil” as “unbegründetes Urteil” (unsubstantiated judgment) that lacks “methodische Sicherung” (methodological rigor).58 It is thus apparent that a methodologically unsubstantiated prejudice was at best seen as speculative and at worst as mere opinion. This is true for the post-Enlightenment understanding of science, but also the humanities including theology and philosophy. Does this mean that all hermeneutic approaches are doomed to fail since it is impossible to shake off prejudices? Not at all. “Hier hat das hermeneutische Problem seinen Ansatzpunkt” (here we find the hermeneutical starting point) says Gadamer, and continues: “Es bedarf einer grundsätzlichen Rehabilitierung des Begriffs des Vorurteils und einer Anerkennung dessen, dass es legitime Vorurteile gibt, wenn man der endlich-geschichtlichen Seinsweise des Menschen gerecht werden will (we need a fundamental rehabilitation of the term prejudice and the recognition that there are legitimate prejudices, in view of doing justice to the finite-historical mode of being human).”59 But if it is indeed the case that there are legitimate preju56 

Cf. Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode I, 281–290. Wahrheit und Methode, 275. 58  Cf. Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode I, 275, cf. 276–281. 59 Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode I, 281. 57 Gadamer,

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dices, then the question arises – for Gadamer, the “erkenntnistheoretische Grundfrage” (epistemological key question) 60 – by what criteria we are able to determine which prejudices are legitimate and which are not. Concerning Paul, the question is precisely whether there are specific prejudices that are more valid than others? The full answer to this question will become apparent as we continue to develop our thoughts. For now, it must suffice to merely indicate the path suggested by Ga­ damer. Even though the Enlightenment was correct in challenging the hegemony of authority and accepted the autonomy of reason, in so doing it also deconstructed the notion of authority itself as a prejudice. But that too is problematic. Gadamer suggests, following the hermeneutical insights of the Reformation, that authority contains “die Möglichkeit übernatürlicher Wahrheit” (possibility of transcendent truth) 61 and is therefore open-ended as a prejudice. But the line from prejudice to truth is not a straight one. In order to make Paul’s thought comprehensible, we will draw on Heidegger’s ontological understanding of truth (see chapter 2) and demonstrate how it can shed light on Pauline thinking without distorting it. Above we referred to Schleiermacher’s “Grundzug des Verstehens” and the fact that this Grundzug implies the psychological makeup of the interpreter and operates within the total context (Totalzusammenhang) of a person’s life. 62 We also noted that our psychological dispositions decisively determine how we construct understanding, an understanding that is always preliminary as we move along bi-directionally in the hermeneutical circle. Whatever we may think and feel about our personal rootedness, our emotional intelligence and our intellectual maturity – all these things are of necessity unique to us and not others and therefore remain preliminary. But there is more to it. It is one thing that our psychological traits colour our understanding, but now we must add that these same traits are also no more than prejudices. The same is true for our methodological assumptions and approaches we bring to Paul. They, too, are prejudices. We may argue all we want about their logical appropriateness and coherence, but in the end any method is also a prejudice. Nonetheless, in view of Gadamer’s understanding that prejudices are preliminary inferences in view of a conclusion, we are entitled to make the case to hold our own prejudices. I will do so in the next chapter. By now it seems to be clear that there is no such thing as a neutral hermeneutics. Objective neutrality in hermeneutics is a myth. All hermeneu60 Gadamer,

Wahrheit und Methode I, 281. Wahrheit und Methode I, 282. 62  Cf. Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode I, 194. 61 Gadamer,

1.5  The Historical Paul

19

tical presuppositions are prejudices or, to speak with Bultmann, they are “preunderstandings.”63 In principle, this is not a problem, at least not the main problem. The real problem materializes when we claim exclusivity with our psychological and methodological approaches at the expense of others. This is crucial. To claim that all Pauline interpretations are tainted non-objectively is not to say that they are of no value, distorted or even false. Non-objective interpretations are simply interpretations that cannot lay claim to a definitive, ultimate and never-changing understanding of Paul. And this includes all interpretations – ancient, medieval, modern, old perspective, new perspective, postmodern, contemporary and existential. It bears repeating to insist that the problem is not to read Paul by means of a theological, philosophical or ideological imposition or filter. The real problem is to be ignorant of one’s own filter and lens and as a result to think that one’s reading constitutes a reading of the historical Paul and his teaching. Crucial is therefore to move away from a mere default hermeneutic to a clear articulation of one’s self-reflected and self-conscious hermeneutical pre-suppositions and prejudices. Both promise and peril are always embedded in a hermeneutical self-conscious reading. The peril is the danger of distortion and falsification of Paul’s “intended message.” The promise is that of a new pathway, a new course of insight and clarification that is otherwise difficult to ascertain. But most of all, the promise lies in making the ancient message of Paul heard in our contemporary context so that it facilitates, to speak with Bonhoeffer, “the coming of grace.”64 In sum, the first step in terms of hermeneutical integrity is therefore that we must be self-aware and knowledgeable of our prejudices and understand how they shape, alter and possibly at times distort our understanding of Paul and his thought. As Gadamer puts it, the hermeneutical challenge is not that we have prejudices, but that we have “undurchschaute Vorurteile” (unrecognized prejudices). 65

1.5  The Historical Paul I asserted above in 1.3 that a hermeneutic of understanding is not a mere description of Paul’s life and teaching, but nothing less than an under63  Rudolf Bultmann, “The Problem of Hermeneutics,” in Bultmann, New Testament and Mythology, 69–93, here 72–74. 64  Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Ethics. Edited by Clifford J. Green. Translated by Reinhard Krauss, Charles C. West and Douglas W. Stott. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2005, 162. 65 Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode I, 274.

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standing of how Paul’s way of being human encroaches on our way of being human. If understanding Paul is in fact our aim, then we are faced with the question of what role the historical Paul66 and his teaching play in our contemporary understanding of existence. In the metaphor of building our house, we cannot simply usurp Paul’s teaching in a preferential manner as if his teachings were a quarry from which we may just take the useful stones for our foundation and leave alone the ones we do not really like. 1. Historical Distance. It is a basic hermeneutical insight to acknowledge the historical gap between us and history67 and therefore also between Paul and us. History for us is past and foreign and thus historical distance cannot naively be ignored or overcome. We cannot simply uncover a nearly 2000-year historical gap as if the difference between ancient event and us was insignificant in view of our desire to understand Paul. History cannot simply be integrated into our contemporary world of thought as if there is a straight line from the distant past to the present, as if there were transferable continuity between us and the past. History as such is past, but the understanding of that history is always present. Gadamer terms that interpretive step nicely a “späteres historisches Nachurteil” (a later historical post-judgment). 68 Udo Schnelle is right on the mark when he declares that “jede Interpretation historischer Schriften ist ein Konstruktionsvorgang, denn Vergangenheit begegnet uns nicht ‘an sich,’ sondern immer nur im Modus gegenwärtiger Aneignung” (every interpretation of historical writings is a constructive process because we encounter the past not ‘as such’ but always in the mode of present appropriation). 69 This is a key insight. The past cannot be retrieved “as such” but only in the mode of contemporary “Aneignung.” In other words, the line between the present and the past is always curved and broken. There is no uninterrupted continuity as if the past has one meaning that is unchangeably true and valid for all generations to follow. Such a view of the past would render history static and not dynamic. Ra­ ther, the past must be interpreted always anew, in every generation and for 66  Cf. Rudolf Bultmann, “The Historical Jesus and the Theology of Paul,” in Bultmann, Faith and Understanding I, 220–246. 67  Cf. Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode I, 296–305. In a later 1985 essay, Gadamer somewhat revises his view of the “Zeitenabstand” or “geschichtlichen Abstand” and prefers to speak instead of the hermeneutical significance of the (non-historical) “Abstand” as such and the “Andersheit des anderen;” cf. Hans-Georg Gadamer, “Zwischen Phänomenologie und Dialektik – Versuch einer Selbstkritik,” in Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode II, 3–23, here 8–9. 68 Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode I, 287. 69  Udo Schnelle, “Methodische Probleme,” 273.

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every interpretive attempt. This is the case for all historical studies, including the study of the biblical narratives and the thought of Paul. 2. Historical Interpretation is Always Reconstruction. To refer to S­ chnelle once more, we just noted that “Vergangenheit begegnet uns nicht ‘an sich,’ sondern immer nur im Modus gegenwärtiger Aneignung” because “jede Interpretation historischer Schriften ist ein Konstruktionsvorgang.”70 The hermeneutic reason is clear: every “Paulusinterpretation stellt ein Modell dar, das auf der Basis von Vorentscheidungen entworfen wurde” (every interpretation of Paul is a model that is based on pre-decisions).71 In other words, since every Vorentscheidung is always also a prejudice, it follows that every interpretation of the Pauline letters is necessarily a subjective hermeneutical undertaking and not an objective and pure historical reconstruction. The nature of that hermeneutical undertaking is precisely that it is one of reconstruction. It is not objective history that is reconstructed but our subjective and preferential understanding of history. We can only appropriate history in the mode of interpretation and understanding. For that reason, any attempt to understand Paul constitutes always a fresh attempt to understand him in the context of his history, or more precisely in the historical gap between the past and the present, in the gap that separates him and us. The position of reconstruction is always that of a retrospective lens, but a retrospective that is situated in the present. Schnelle says it well: “Die eigentliche Zeitstufe des Auslegers ist immer die Gegenwart, in die er untrennbar verwoben ist und deren kulturelle Standards das Verstehen des gegenwärtigen Vergangenen entscheidend prägen” (the given timeline of the interpreter is always the present, in which s/he is inseparably interwoven and whose cultural standards critically determine the understanding of the contemporary past).72 In view of Paul this means: “Es gibt immer nur den ‘Paulus’ des Interpreten/der Interpretin, und deshalb ist es mehr als natürlich, dass es eine Vielzahl von Paulusbildern gibt” (there is only the ‘Paul’ of the interpreter, and for this reason it is natural that there is a multiplicity of Pauline explanations).73 Even though it seems self-evident, it is significant enough to reiterate that that the subjective nature of interpretation vis-à-vis historical events will always and necessarily be a reconstruction based on the interpreters personal hermeneutic prejudices. No subjective understanding of history can objectively reconstruct it. 70 

Udo Schnelle, “Methodische Probleme,” 273. Udo Schnelle, “Methodische Probleme,” 277. 72  Udo Schnelle, “Methodische Probleme,” 273. 73  Udo Schnelle, “Methodische Probleme,” 274. 71 

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3. The Historical Paul cannot be Reconstructed. For us this means that no subjective understanding of Paul can viably reconstruct his historical context. The hermeneutical attempt to reconstruct Paul is the endeavour to understand both the markers and content of Paul’s thought. But it is not an attempt to retrieve history as such. There is no such thing as retrieving history; it is an illusion to believe so. Bultmann saw quite correctly “dass es eine Rekonstruktion der wirklichen Geschichte nicht geben kann” (that a reconstruction of actual history is impossible).74 Neither is there a necessary historical development as in Idealist philosophy, nor a timeless reflection of history as in Positivism. Hence, the retrieval of the historical Paul is not our goal. In fact, I am suggesting that any attempt to understand Paul – by virtue of the mere fact that it can only be an understanding that originates from our contemporary perspective – cannot have a historical reconstruction of his life or his theological thinking as the end point. To repeat, there is no such thing as retrieving history, as if the retrieval of the historical Paul were the chief objective of Pauline studies; it is a misconception to think so. Historical description does not automatically mean contemporary intelligibility. In this regard it needs to be said that to understand Paul is precisely not to know “what Paul really said.”75 It is, in my view, dangerous to make such a claim because it is hermeneutically false. We do well to deconstruct the “what Paul really said” or “what Paul really meant” myths, be it Paul the church-builder, the Pharisee, the apostle to the Gentiles,76 the empire-resistor, the apocalyptic thinker, the second founder of Christianity, the founder of Christian theology, the misogynist, the Marxist, the liberal, conservative, atheist, Lutheran, Catholic, secular or whatever Paul. All caricatures without exception depend on hermeneutical prejudices and filters. To be sure some of these portrayals are correct, overlap and intersect; but they are not all equal when it comes to understanding Paul and our contemporary existence. Once again, they highlight that the historical Paul will always and necessarily remain a construct.77 74  Rudolf Bultmann, “Das Problem einer Theologischen Exegese des Neuen Testaments,” in Andreas Lindemann (ed). Neues Testament und Christliche Existenz. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2002, 13–38 (original 1925), here 28. 75  See for example N. T. Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said: Was Paul of Tarsus the Real Founder of Christianity? Oxford: Lion; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 1997. 76  For Paul’s own self-designation, cf. Gal. 1:1, 2:8; Rom. 1:5, 11:13. 77  On the interrelation between history, historiography and a hermeneutic of the New Testament, see Jens Schröter, “Überlegungen zum Verhältnis von Historiographie und Hermeneutik in der neutestamentlichen Wissenschaft,” 191–203, here 193, in Po­ kor­ný and Roskovec (eds), Philosophical Hermeneutics and Biblical Exegesis.

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4. Understanding Beyond History. How then do we move through history to understanding Paul? To be sure, understanding is not the same as believing in the historical Paul or believing in the timeless historicity of the teachings of Paul. We do not understand Paul because we can provide information and descriptions about his past life and teaching. Bultmann insists that there is a vast difference between “what is said” (Gesagtem)” and “what is meant” (Gemeintem).78 Understanding aims at what is meant, but always by way of what is said. It is clear, then, that understanding happens in the open-ended interpretive tension with the biblical text. We will return to the question of text and Word in the next chapter. Suffice it to say here that from the point of understanding the speech-event79 of the text/ Word is not merely a “historical revelation.”80 Rather, we understand Paul because we are part of the speech-event that he articulates and we interpret in a self-conscious, self-reflective and critical hermeneutic that seeks the truth of the speech-event itself and not the bearer of its words. The memory of the speech-event of the Word is not merely a recollection of a past event but its transformative and life-giving power.81 In other words, a mere historical knowledge of Paul (even if it would be possible) would not do justice to the word-happening and speech-event character of the Word by which understanding opens for us. It follows that we are not only entitled to think beyond Paul, but that it is our responsibility, theologically, to go beyond Paul. To claim that we must go beyond Paul to understand Paul is not saying at all that we are going against Paul. The apostle provided much indeed about our understanding of the life of Jesus the Messiah, but he did not provide everything. Paul was fully engaged in the hermeneutic process of making sense of Je19.

78  Bultmann,

“Das Problem einer Theologischen Exegese des Neuen Testaments,”

79 Baum, Die Hermeneutik Hans-Georg Gadamers als philosophia christiana, 236: “Verstehen ist Geschehen (understanding is event).” 80  Ingolf Dalferth, “Ereignis und Transzendenz,” in ZThK 110 (2013), 475–500, here 491. 81  Dalferth, “Ereignis und Transzendenz,” 490, offers a perceptive illustration of the speech-event: “Wie Musik nicht am Instrument, sondern im Ohr des Hörers entsteht, so ereignet sich das Sprach-Ereignis nicht per se, sondern am Ort derer, die es als bestimmtes Ereignis vernehmen: Das verstehende Erleben des Ereignisses ist dessen verständliches Sichereignen, und umgekehrt. Das heisst: Das Ereignis geschieht nicht zunächst und wird dann interpretiert, es geschieht als Interpretation” (just as music does not originate at the instrument but in the ear of the listener, the speech-event does not occur per se but at the place of those who hear it as a specific event: the comprehending experience of the event is its comprehensible happening to itself, and vice versa. That means: The event does not happen first and is then interpreted; it happens as interpretation).

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sus’ life, death and resurrection vis-à-vis his own understanding of the scriptures and Torah as inherited by his Pharisaic traditions. Context and questions then and now are not identical. With full respect for the Pauline Sitz im Leben we must dare to go further. 5. Paul as Historical Person. Nevertheless, to say that a reconstruction of the historical Paul is not the aim of our attempt to understand Paul still requires to examine Paul on his own terms, that is to say within the Sitz im Leben of his Jewish-Hellenistic-Christian context. Paul was a concrete historical flesh-and-blood human being who lived in the first century. He wrote concrete letters to his congregations that were made up of real people of all stripes with all kinds of questions and needs. As a person, Paul had a life-changing experience, a Christophany, that radically challenged his life as he had lived it up to that point. His search for a re-orientation after his Damascus experience was now focussed on the role and significance of the Messiah from Nazareth (cf. 2 Cor. 10:5). Called as an apostle to the Gentiles, Paul proclaimed a radical message about Jesus of Nazareth, established new communities and wrote letters to these communities. This is the historical nutshell for making Paul intelligible. But historical context alone is not sufficient for understanding, both for Paul and us. Even though we must respect the historical Paul as a real person we must go beyond Pauline history; and for that we need another interpretive lens. We must be mindful that Paul the historical person and the existential ethos emanating from Paul the person are not the same. While it is true that person and the resulting ethos from that person’s life and teaching are inseparably interrelated, from a hermeneutic lens of understanding, the second is arguably more important than the first. The reason is simply that “die ‘Person’ erschliesst sich zwar durch die Biographie, geht aber nicht in ihr auf” (a ‘person’ is encountered through biography but is not identical with it).82 In other words, the person of Paul comes to us through his biography, but is neither just identical with nor exhausted in it. To put it in the most succinct terms: there is more to Paul than his historical existence. Understanding him aims at uncovering precisely what the more is in our contemporary lives. In the end, as Eichholz puts it, our task is “Paulus so nahe wie möglich zu kommen” (to come as close as possible to Paul).83 To say that Paul must be read within a Jewish framework, in his own terms, and then to proceed and read him through the lens of theology and 82 

Eve-Marie Becker, “Die Person des Paulus,” in Paulus Handbuch, 129. Georg Eichholz, Die Theologie des Paulus im Umriss. Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag, 4th ed. 1983, 13. 83 

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existential philosophy is not a contradiction in terms. The reason is at hand: we cannot read Paul on his own terms, but we can only read Paul on our terms in view of what we think were his historical terms. We cannot assume Paul’s position, his historical context or his terms. We can only aim at understanding his terms from the perspective of our own terms. 6. History as Tradition. When we speak of retrieving the Paul of history, we must do so not in terms of retrieving or reconstructing historical data, but in terms of acknowledging that we as interpreters stand in a long line of tradition. Gadamer says it best: “Am Anfang aller historischen Hermeneutik muss daher die Auflösung des abstrakten Gegensatzes zwischen Tradition und Historie, zwischen Geschichte und Wissen von ihr stehen” (at the beginning of all historical hermeneutics stands the dissolution of the abstract binary between tradition and historicity, between history and our knowledge of it).84 Gadamer understands tradition as Überlieferung, that is to say as standing in a (historical) line through which many ideas have been handed down. Crucial for understanding is “sich von der Überlieferung angesprochen zu sehen” (to be addressed by the tradition). 85 In other words, the handing down of tradition is not a neutral but a personal and existential experience. As interpreters we are drawn into the stream of what Gadamer calls “die Wirkung der fortlebenden Tradition” (the effects of the always living tradition).86 In this view, tradition is alive and not a recalling of a past but dead event. Indeed, tradition has a Wirkung, a contemporary effect. Our attitude toward the past is not in opposition to the past, but – to express it positively – is the openness to be drawn into the hermeneutical event to be disclosed by the truth of tradition in an ontic manner. Hartmut Gese brings all of this into sharp focus when he notes that the New Testament, Paul included, refers backwards to historical events or persons through the prism of scripture. 87 In other words, the historical past is always somewhat broken and appears only in the light of scripture. Our relation to the historical Paul is similarly that we stand in the historical flow of the traditions that he received, re-interpreted and handed down to us through his hermeneutical lens of scripture and tradition.

84 Gadamer,

Wahrheit und Methode I, 287 (original emphasis). Wahrheit und Methode I, 287 (original emphasis). 86 Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode I, 287. 87  Cf. Hartmut Gese, “Hermeneutische Grundsäze der Exegese, in Gese, Alttestamentliche Studien. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck) 1992, 249–265, here 262–263. Gese remarks that in New Testament texts “ein durch die Schrift definiertes Verhältnis zur Geschichte besteht,” 263. 85 Gadamer,

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1.6  The Hermeneutical Paul Any person who reads the letters of the Apostle Paul has the same basic task: it is the attempt to make intelligible what this ancient figure stood for both in terms of his life and thought. Even though at the surface it does not seem such a difficult task to understand Paul, the reality for both ancient and modern readers has often been the opposite experience. Already the author of 2 Peter 3:15–16 remarked of “brother Paul” that in his letters “are some things… hard to understand (δυσνόητος), which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures.”88 This sentiment is significant for two reasons. First, the fact that “some things are hard to understand” precludes any attitude that pretends to know that Paul’s teaching was easy to understand. It thus points to the requirement to engage the Apostle’s thinking on a deeper level of examination. Second, some people actually “twist” Paul’s writings and teachings, that is to say – at least for the author of 2 Peter – that these people have misunderstood Paul. In other words, implicit in this verse is the assumption that there are competing understandings of Paul’s letters, even to the point where one understanding is assumed to be more correct than others. Quite clearly, the difficulty of making sense of the apostle’s letters is not a modern phenomenon; it is as old as Paul himself. His letters provide the first glimpses of the fact that his teaching was variously (mis)understood within the emerging Jewish-Christian communities that he established. At times, the divergent and opposing interpretations of his teaching created significant social disruptions, as for example in Corinth. In other words, from the very beginning of Pauline interpretation, the hermeneutical question was immediately prevalent, even if only by implication and not under the rubric of what has now become the scholarly discipline of hermeneutics. Nonetheless, to render cogent our own contemporary attempt to read and understand Paul we must be cognizant of the fact that Paul himself was a reader and interpreter. Indeed, it is crucial to recognize that Paul himself was a hermeneut; he was arguably the first Christian hermeneut in that his calling as the apostle to the Gentiles confronted him with the hermeneutical task of making persuasive his understanding that Jesus of Nazareth was the resurrected Messiah of his people Israel. Paul was a hermeneut in the narrow sense by virtue of his reading and interpreting of Tanakh and Torah; he was so in a wider sense in that he tried to “read” and make sense of 88  Heb. 5:11 similarly notes that “we have much to say which is hard to explain,” namely Jesus’ likening to Melchizedek the high priest.

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his Pharisaic tradition (cf. Gal. 1:14 τῶν πατρικῶν μου παραδόσεων) within the new horizon of a Messianic perspective and his calling to proclaim that new understanding. On several occasions, Paul makes it very clear that he too stands in a tradition that he is interpreting, but not inventing (cf. 1 Cor. 11:23; 15:3). In broad strokes, the Pauline hermeneutical trajectory unfolds in this way: Paul interpreted the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, Torah and Tanakh through the lens of his Pharisaic tradition. But the hermeneutical circle is larger. While Paul interpreted the life of Jesus of Nazareth as the resurrected Messiah, Jesus himself had already been engaged in a similar hermeneutic endeavour. He, too, interpreted Torah and scriptures in his own life and teaching by critically engaging and challenging the positions of the Pharisees as the “normative”89 religious group alongside other religious authorities such as scribes and priests. Jesus’ hermeneutic horizon was thus directed backwards to an understanding of the scriptures and Torah; but he was focussed on his contemporary debate with the Pharisaic tradition as the main representatives of Torah piety. Even though, the hermeneutical circle is even larger. The Pharisees themselves were already embedded in the hermeneutic circle of interpreting the Mosaic Torah, by developing their own hermeneutic principles and oral interpretations. That Judaism is at core a hermeneutical religious tradition is also apparent in the very making of rabbinic literature.90 A case in point: the progression of hermeneutical thinking may be observed in the development of R. Hillel’s seven middoth (of biblical interpretation), R. Jishmael’s 13 middoth and R. Eliezer’s 32 middoth.91 Another prime example of hermeneutical development is of course the codification of the Pharisees’ oral interpretations in the Mishnah, which in turn became the cornerstone of the Talmud, midrashic, halachic and haggadic traditions and so on.92 89  Cf. Roland Deines, “The Pharisees between ‘Judaisms’ and ‘Common Judaism’,” in Donald A. Carson et al (eds), Justification and Variegated Nomism, vol.  1. WUNT 2/140. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2001, 443–504, here 503. 90 The hermeneutic complexity of biblical and post-biblical Judaism is nicely described by James A. Diamond, Jewish Theology Unbound. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2018, 12: the Hebrew Bible, he notes, “reflects many centuries of editorial tinkering throughout the biblical period… Every aspect of biblical thought, be it legal, theological, historical, narratological, poetic, or otherwise, must thus be layered with its radical rabbinic transformation fueled by catastrophe, absence, exile, and the challenges of competing nascent theologies reflected in the Mishnah and Talmud.” 91  Cf. H. L. Strack and G. Stemberger, Einleitung in Talmud und Midrasch. Munich: C. H. Beck, 7th new edition 1984, 25–40. See also Jörg Frey, “Die religiöse Prägung: Weisheit, Apokalyptik, Schriftauslegung,” in Paulus Handbuch, 59–66. 92  But there is also a “reverse hermeneutic” in that post-biblical Judaism may have

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In other words, when we attempt to understand the apostle Paul, it is not just a matter of reading his letters and gaining from them undisputed insights regarding their meaning. But rather, Paul himself stood in a long line of hermeneutical trajectories – many preceding him (for example his use of the Septuagint in Romans 9–11), others being contemporaneous – that shaped his own self-understanding and the understanding of Jesus the Messiah; Paul was roughly a contemporary of Jesus and belonged to the group of the Pharisees. The upshot of all of this is that the hermeneutical circle and its horizons are indeed wide and multi-layered. In order to understand Paul, we contemporary interpreters of Paul must be mindful that Paul himself was engaged in an extensive hermeneutical exercise. He attempted to understand the mission of Jesus of Nazareth,93 who in turn was himself engaged in the hermeneutical exercise to understand the scriptures, promises and realities of Israel vis-à-vis the Pharisees, who themselves were equally engaged in a hermeneutic mission to understand these same identity markers as Jesus and Paul. In addition to Paul’s hermeneutical task of making sense of his Jewish-Pharisaic tradition in view of Jesus the Messiah, there is a further hermeneutical dimension, namely, Paul’s dialogue and challenges with his emergent non-Jewish congregations and their cultural, moral, intellectual and social heritage. These things needed to be theologically integrated into Paul’s re-visioning of the purposes of God. This, too, was part of his overall task of hermeneutical clarification. The same hermeneutic dynamic as in Judaism applies to Christianity. The diverse linguistic, cultural, geographic, religious, economic and intellectual conditions of Paul’s congregations, tied to their emerging understanding of Jesus of Nazareth – as interpreted by the apostle Paul, but also by Peter, Barnabas and others – placed early Christian thought from its very inception into a hermeneutical horizon. As long as there are attempts to understand Jesus’ life and teachings, this hermeneutical horizon cannot been shaped by Christian developments. Cf. Peter Schäfer, Die Geburt des Judentums aus dem Christentum. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010. So also Alan Segal, “Universalism in Judaism and Christianity,” in Troels Engberg-Pedersen (ed), Paul in His Hellenistic Context. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 1995, 1–30. Segal notes “that the same issues which were debated in the church were also debated by the rabbis… and that it is possible that the rabbis debated this issue [question of Gentiles] because it was raised by the Christian community… [although] this has always been an unpopular hypothesis in the study of rabbinic texts,” here 7. 93  Cf. N. T. Wright, Paul, 154–155 has a good discussion of the relation between Jesus and Paul in terms of that of composer and conductor. Jesus was the composer and Paul the creative conductor of the composition.

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be done away with. By default, every interpreter has a hermeneutical circle and horizon. Paul’s Damascus’ experience – or as Breton calls it, the “fiery sword” that divided his life into a “before” and “after” – put on him “the pressure of a shattering contingency,” namely the unforeseen task to engage in a “hermeneutics of prehistory.”94 The Pharisee-turned-apostle now faces “the ontological density of a being of exception”95 precisely in that he is challenged to make hermeneutic sense of the before in light of the after and give substance and shape to the contingency he discovers between before and after. Another very important hermeneutical question to ask of Paul is this: did he think of writing scripture – the holy, inspired, unalterable Word of God for all times and generations – when he was crafting the various letters to the emergent churches in various places?96 It seems to me the answer must be in the negative. The reasons are at least twofold. One, it seems to me that Paul was not thinking of adding to holy scriptures because he was convinced that those had already been given to Israel. As the apostle called by God and entrusted with the gospel, Paul saw his task to expound and interpret Israel’s already existing holy scriptures, both vis-à-vis his fellow Jews and the Gentiles. Paul argued from the broad horizon of scripture and Torah based on a new understanding of those very documents and traditions, but he did not envision himself as if he was called to revise, complement or alter them in any way. Again and again he employs the introductory formula ἡ γραφὴ λέγει to set up an argument.97 In other words, his implicit assumption is that scripture is a sufficient basis for carrying out his calling to proclaim the gospel and use existing scripture to make his case. Moreover, he employs the expression “according to scripture” (κατὰ τὰς γραφὰς), precisely because he wants to emphasize that his authority is 94  Stanislas Breton, A Radical Philosophy of Saint Paul. New York: Columbia University Press 2011, 45. 95 Breton, A Radical Philosophy of Saint Paul, 46. 96  In a similar vein: did Jesus think of his sayings as being equivalent to the scriptures of Israel? Did he think of the (later written) records of his discussions with the religious leaders as holy scripture? Did Jesus think the Torah needed enlargement and completion, or did he, like Paul, focus on a new understanding of that which was already revealed and recorded in Torah and deemed complete? The answer is clear. Jesus insists that “not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished” (Matt. 5:18). These two points alone – that neither Jesus nor Paul thought of adding to holy scriptures – is sufficient to reinforce the hermeneutical nature of Judaism. 97  Cf. Rom. 4:3; 9:17; 10:11; 11:2; Gal. 4:30. For Paul’s other use of the term γραφή see Rom. 1:2; 15:4; 16:26; 1 Cor. 15:2–4; Gal. 3:8, 22.

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grounded in Israel’s scripture and not in his own wisdom and ideas. Nowhere in his writing do we ever find even a hint that scripture may be in need for an addition, enlargement or revision. Second, Paul’s theological horizon was eschatological, or if we prefer, we can say it was apocalyptical. As early as his first document, we read in 1 Thessalonians 4 of Paul’s conviction that Jesus will return and will do so imminently. Similarly, 1 Corinthians 7 and what Paul remarks there on marriage must be understood against the foil that time is passing away. Paul explicitly notes that “the appointed time has grown short” (7:29) and that “the present form of this world is passing away” (7:31). Given Paul’s preoccupation with the impending return of Jesus, it would make little sense to imagine that he was thinking of his letters as documents that would be read on the same level as Israel’s holy scriptures.

1.7  Biblical Scholarship, Theology and Philosophy Again, for the sake of clarity, let me be upfront: even though I think we encounter hermeneutical limits when it comes to the reconstruction of the historical Paul and his life, and given what I will suggest in the next chapter about existential interpretation of his teaching, I am, nonetheless, fully committed to the highest standards of Pauline scholarship in every aspect of that vast field of study. Of course, it has caught my attention that there are Pauline interpreters who will not forfeit even a single opportunity to warn against theologians. Too many theologians, they argue, misrepresent and misunderstand Paul because they see him through a predetermined theological lens. Thus, there is the Lutheran Paul, the Catholic Paul, the Paul of the Protestant Reformation, the Paul of various denominations, of theological seminaries and so on. Theology and dogma are the given, the critics say, and Paul must simply be squeezed into the doctrinal mold. Not surprisingly, even Jörg Frey cautioned that it is necessary to protect Paul “vor der Systematisierungswut der christlichen Theologen” (from the systematizing-anger of Christian theologians).98 Although I see myself as a Christian theologian, a Pauline scholar, a keen reader of Second Temple Judaism and a philosophically interested exegete, I do not harbour any penchant to systematize Paul and do not believe that I unduly theologize 98  Friedrich

Avemarie, Neues Testament und frührabbinisches Judentum. WUNT 316. Edited by Jörg Frey and Angela Standhartinger. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2013, XIX.

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him. Biblical scholarship and theological-philosophical readings are not mutually exclusive. I do have an intellectual point of departure – a prejudice based on phenomenological observation and ontological premise – but no more or less than any other Pauline interpreter and his or her prejudices. To be sure, while it is prudent to keep distinct the lines between Pauline studies and theological doctrines, it is naïve to suppose that the two could, and should, be entirely kept apart. Biblical Scholarship. To understand Paul – and indeed Jesus or any other aspect of early Christianity – it is indispensable to study biblical and post-biblical Judaism. In this regard, crucial for Christian scholars is another warning by Jörg Frey, namely that Christian scholars avoid the fallacy “die Wahrheit der christlichen Messiaslehre aus der hebräischen Überlieferung aufzuzeigen (to demonstrate the truth of the Christian understanding of the Messiah from Hebrew traditions).”99 Even though, in the name of intellectual integrity, the question will always arise in fresh ways: what is a proper correlation between biblical studies, theology and philo­ sophy within the matrix of Jewish-Christian thinking? The answer, of course, will arguably be diverse. Nonetheless, biblical studies must be carried out within the norms and standards of academic discourse. My position on biblical scholarship comes close to that of Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer’s lecture on “Creation and Sin” during the winter semester 1932–1933 at the University of Berlin were later published under the title “Creation and Fall.”100 The subtitle “Theological Exposition of Genesis 1–3” is most remarkable because it points to the key element of his understanding of the creation narrative: that it must be understood theologically and not merely exegetically in the context of ancient near eastern Religionsgeschichte. An even more illustrative example is Karl Barth’s famous work, the first edition of Der Römerbrief.101 As is well known, that book had caused considerable consternation, various hostile comments but also some positive feedback. The editor of the Römerbrief in the Gesamtausgabe added a letter to subsequent printings in which Barth responded to the criticism levelled against him. His Basel colleague Paul Wernle had published a devastating critique, but Barth took him to task. In 99  Jörg Frey, “Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und antikes Judentum. Probleme – Wahrnehmungen – Perspektiven,” in ZThK 109 (2012), 447–471, here 447. 100  Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Creation and Fall. A Theological Exposition of Genesis 1–3, (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English 3), edited by John W. de Gruchy, translated by Douglas Stephen Bax. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 1996. 101  Karl Barth, Der Römerbrief. Erste Fassung 1919, GA 16. Zurich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich 1985.

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fact, already in the preface to the first edition, Barth had made it abundantly clear that although the historical-critical method has its own right, there is a more important task, namely “durch das Historische hindurch zu sehen” (to see through the historical). For him that meant the interpretation of Romans must aim towards an “Arbeit des Verstehens” (a work of understanding).102 In a letter to Wernle, Barth repeats his commitment to a hermeneutics of understanding. He assures his critic that it was “in der Tat meine Absicht bei der Arbeit: ich wollte verstehen und um keinen Preis nicht verstehen” (always my intention in my work: I wanted to understand and by no means not understand). He further notes that he believed “es muss alles einen Sinn haben” (everything must make sense) because the apostle Paul “weiss, was er will und sagt, und er kann verstanden werden” (knows what he wants and says, and it is possible to understand him).103 Barth and Bonhoeffer, we can add Bultmann and others, understood that biblical scholarship is not only an examination of texts that follows the conventions of scholarly protocols based on philological, historical, contextual methodology and so on, but that these texts lay claims to meaning that can be understood – that is, theological claims and existential understanding. Judaism. Ever since Ed Sanders’ Paul and Palestinian Judaism, it is intellectually inadmissible to study Paul apart from or outside his Pharisaic roots. Why this is so, is laid out in a recent compilation of essays, Paul within Judaism. Restoring the First-Century Context to the Apostle.104 While the work as a whole is rightfully critical of semantic, conceptual, theological and ideological layers that are often anachronistically applied to Paul’s thinking, and extrapolated into modern understandings of the Christian tradition, I wonder whether the claim that we need a “radical new perspective” that pushes the “new perspective” much further is somewhat self-serving. To be sure, there is still plenty work to be done to return Paul to his first century Pharisaic context. But in all fairness, it is also the case that a good number of scholars have taken up Sanders hermeneutically and attempt to understand the thinking of the apostle to the Gentiles in his Jewish Sitz im Leben. But here is the issue: even if we could hypothetically agree that “the quest to understand the historical Paul”105 is possible, it does therefore not

102 Barth,

Der Römerbrief. Erste Fassung 1919, 3. Der Römerbrief. Erste Fassung 1919, 643. 104  Mark D. Nanos and Magnus Zetterholm (eds). Paul within Judaism. Restoring the First-Century Context to the Apostle. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2015. 105  Nanos, “Introduction,” in Nanos and Zetterholm (eds). Paul within Judaism, 9. 103 Barth,

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follow that Paul belongs solely to Pharisaic Judaism. Just as there is no exclusive “Jewish Paul” there is likewise no exclusive “Christian Paul.” In fact, the excitement of studying Paul lies precisely in the hermeneutical gap, in his existential challenge and in his own identity search. Paul is both Jewish and Christian, but even more important – and this is exactly the point of existential hermeneutics – above all he is a human being. Being human has priority over identity. To point ahead (see below section 2.3), we post-modern interpreters can only meet Paul within our contemporary reality that defies historical identification. I, the interpreter, a human being, meets Paul, a human being. In effect that means that every interpreter of Paul is trapped to some extent in his or her “ideological perspective.” It is easy to point the finger to “normative Christian theology” but de facto every approach entails elements of ideology. It is refreshing to read that Mark Nanos, as the editor, openly acknowledges that the contributors of Paul within Judaism “do not propose to be free from cultural conditioning or exposure to the disciplines, or from the influence of contemporary sensibilities and previous interpretations.” Hence, the essays under the rubric Paul within Judaism also “represent constructions of Paul.”106 So what are the themes that place Paul within Judaism? Sanders argues that Paul inherited and conceptualized his theological thinking around two presuppositions, “two principal theological views,” as he says, shared by his “Jewish contemporaries, both friend and foe,” namely that “there is one God” and “God controls the world,” in theological jargon, the tenets of monotheism and providence.107 The pillar of monotheism is so deeply entrenched in every Jew of Paul’s time that we can simply accepted it without further discussion, notwithstanding that there may have been no uniform understanding of monotheism within the various forms of Judaism at the time of Jesus and Paul.108 Sanders’ second presupposition, providence,109 is theologically closely tied to monotheism.110 We know from Jo106 

Nanos, “Introduction,” 4 (original emphasis). P. Sanders, Paul. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press 1991, 34. See also E. P. Sanders, Paul. The Apostle’s Life, Letters, and Thought. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2015, 30–54. 108  Cf. Ephraim E. Urbach, The Sages. Their Concepts and Beliefs. Translated by Israel Abrahams. Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1987, chapter 2 on “The Belief in one God.” On Paul’s re-visioned monotheism, see Hurtado, “Paul’s Christology,” 185– 198. 109  E. P. Sanders, Paul. The Apostle’s Life, Letters, and Thought. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2015, 51–53. 110 Urbach, The Sages, 26–31, first discusses providence in the chapter on monotheism and then devotes an entire chapter to the topic (255–285). 107  E.

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sephus111 that the Pharisees upheld the providence of God as a central tenet of the traditions they handed down to the generations to come. According to Josephus, they “are considered the most accurate interpreters of the laws, and hold the position of the leading sect, attribute everything to Fate (εἱμαρμένη) and God.”112 Elsewhere he repeats that the Pharisees “postulate that everything is brought about by fate, still they do not deprive the human will of the pursuit of what is in man’s power.”113 Josephus employs the Greek term εἱμαρμένη, a word that has a sense of fatalism. As several commentators have remarked, since Josephus is writing to a Gentile audience, he used the term εἱμαρμένη, prevalent in Greek literature. A more adequate term for Jewish readers would be the word πρόνοια (providence), as we know from Philo of Alexandria.114 The intriguing aspect for our purposes is that Sanders makes a direct connection between the Jewish presuppositions of monotheism and providence and Paul’s understanding of sin. “We should pay special attention,” Sanders advises, “to the degree to which Sin is treated by Paul as an enemy power.”115 The issue at hand is one of theodicy: how is it possible to reconcile the goodness of God, pronounced in creation, with the fact of an evil power operative in the lives of human beings and the world? Paul draws on the conviction, as Sanders puts it, that “the doctrine of providence, allied with the general idea of God’s providence, is one of Judaism’s noblest gifts to humanity.”116 For Paul, the fact that sin is a power and reigns forcefully is mitigated by his belief that the one God of Israel is good and powerful to overcome the slavery of sin. Said differently, sin will not have the last word, but the salvific work of God. We will return to these themes in the following chapters. In addition to monotheism and providence, Josephus recalls other pillars of Pharisaic theology that also resembled Paul’s position. It is the belief in the resurrection of the body. In Ant. 18:12 Josephus notes that the Pharisees also “believe that souls have the power to survive death and that under there are rewards or punishments under the earth for those who have led lives of virtue or vice: eternal imprisonment is the lot of evil souls, while the good souls receive an easy passage to a new life.” The word res111 

For a general description of the school of the Pharisees, see Josephus, War 2:162– 163 and Ant. 18:12–15. 112  War 2:162 (LCL). 113  Ant. 18:12 (LCL). 114  Cf. Peter Frick, Divine Providence in Philo of Alexandria, TSAJ 77. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 1999, 13–17. 115 Sanders, Paul, 35. 116 Sanders, Paul, 40.

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urrection is not employed here but the basic concept is clear enough for Paul to have been utterly convinced of it, as 1 Cor. 15 demonstrates beyond doubt.117 In addition to the pillars of monotheism, providence, free will and resurrection/life to come we must add the covenant, election and Torah. These are so basic to all of Judaism as they are to Paul, that for the moment we do not need to discuss them further. We will return to these themes as we progress. What needs to be said, however, is a point emphasized by Alan Segal. He points to another feature that situates Paul squarely within Pharisaic Judaism. It is his “appeal to scripture” which he interprets in view of “the significance of the crucified Messiah.”118 Paul does so by employing the scriptural interpretive techniques pesher, allegory and most of all midrash (for example in Gal. 3:6–14). Segal thus underscores that Paul continues to be faithful to his Pharisaic thinking and Jewish traditions while at the same time grappling with the watershed of the Damascus experience. Post-Damascus the apostle to the Gentiles looked at the Pharisaic traditions from a new angle. As Douglas Harink puts it succinctly: “Paul is now understood as a Jew who took a fundamentally Jewish message (christologically reordered) into the Gentile world.”119 In other words, Paul did not suddenly give up his Jewish worldview, but he remained ever so committed to it,120 irrespective of how deeply he had to re-evaluate inherited teachings and practices in light of the call of the risen Jesus. The upshot of my understanding of Judaism is thus that a “Paul within Judaism” is the default by which we must approach the apostle to the Gentiles. Unlike Sanders, I do not hold the view that Paul found something wrong with Judaism, namely that it was not Christianity. I understand Paul as a genuine thinker deeply committed to Jewish life in all its depth, but one who was perplexed by the call of the one whom he persecuted. The Pauline puzzle that marks his letters is how this Jewish man, Jesus of Nazareth, 117 Sanders, Paul. The Apostle’s Life, Letters, and Thought, 51, somewhat curiously remarks: “I do not see any passages in Paul’s letters that might qualify as Pharisaic traditions and thus justify his self-description.” 118  Alan F. Segal, “Paul’s Jewish Presuppositions,” in CCSP, 164–165. 119  Douglas Harink, Paul among the Postliberals. Pauline Theology beyond Christendom and Modernity. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press 2003, 16. 120  In Rom. 9:3–5 Paul solemnly declares: “for I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own brothers and sisters, my own flesh and blood. They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, comes the Christ, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.”

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could be claimed as the redeemer for Israel and for the Gentiles. The challenge was neither to cheapen the teachings and election of his beloved Israel nor to betray the extension of God’s call to include the Gentiles, and indeed all creation. As he was configuring a theological synthesis to do justice to both his inherited Judaism and the newly envisioned one, he discovered that there was nothing fundamentally wrong with Judaism, but with human nature! In nuce, the issue was not Judaism but the power of sin. To be fair in approaching Paul, we must attempt to understand the Judaism(s) of Paul on their own terms. But we must also understand Paul on his own (new) terms, and we must equally understand our own modern and postmodern questions on their own terms.121 We must be cautious to grant each of these their own voice before we enter into dialogue. Theology. When we speak of theology we are faced with a broad spectrum of possible foci: Jewish theology, Biblical theology, Pauline theology or systematic theology and even these categories are divided into subfields.122 At the risk of oversimplification we may say that theology goes beyond biblical studies in the sense that it seeks to evaluate and correlate the findings of exegesis. The aim is to articulate a greater whole that is not apparent from the details of exegesis. To do this, most theology ends up being arranged in topics, themes and doctrines that become part of a system of theological discourse. It is practically impossible to think theologically without systematizing the biblical narratives to some extent. Regarding Paul, the old perspective and the new perspective alike, as every other perspective, work on specific hermeneutical prejudices that may deconstruct one theological system and support another one. Hermeneutically, hardly any scholar is satisfied with a mere description “of what is said” without also trying to make sense “of why things are said.” In other words, many scholars are interested in understanding and not just explanation.

121  For a first orientation regarding these questions, see Myron B. Penner (ed), Christianity and the Postmodern Turn. Six Views. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press 2005. 122  See for example the following collections of essays: Cilliers Breytenbach and Jörg Frey (eds), Aufgabe und Durchführung einer Theologie des Neuen Testaments. WUNT 205. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2007; Wolfgang Kraus and Karl-Wilhelm Niebuhr (eds), Frühjudentum und Neues Testament im Horizont Biblischer Theologie. WUNT 162. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2003; Heinrich Assel, Stefan Beyerle and Christfried Böttrich (eds), Beyond Biblical Theologies. WUNT 295. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2012 and Benjamin E. Reynolds, Brian Lugioyo and Kevin J. Vanhoozer (eds), Reconsidering the Relationship between Biblical and Systematic Theology in the New Testament. WUNT 2/369. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2014.

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There is, however, another dimension to theological discourse vis-à-vis biblical studies. It is the conviction that the text has a deeper dimension to it than just the actual words. It is the belief that the biblical narrative is the Word of God or at least contains the Word of God. Hofius summarizes it succinctly when he notes: “es ist das principium verbi divini, die Erkenntnis, dass in dem Menschenwort der neutestamentlichen Autoren ein qualitativ anderes Wort bezeugt wird” (it is the principle of the divine Word, the insight that the human word of the New Testament writers testifies to a qualitatively different Word).123 Consequently, “setzt die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft das … principium verbi divini voraus, so kann sie sich nicht als eine ausschliessliche historische, sondern nur als eine dezidiert theologische Disziplin begreifen” (if the science of the New Testament assumes the principle of the divine Word, then it cannot be an exclusively historical discipline, but must understand itself deliberately as a theological discipline).124 In other words, the assertion that holy scriptures of both testaments contain the revealed self-disclosure of God is not a hindrance to understanding what Judaism, Jesus and Paul are all about, but as Hofius splendidly summarizes, biblical studies are not merely historical but always to some extent theological disciplines. Philosophy. While many scholars can see the constructive interaction between biblical studies and (systematic) theology, fewer scholars agree with the idea that philosophy can add meaningful insights to biblical studies. After all, what can philosophy add to what biblical thinking has not already articulated?125 The benefit and advantage of philosophy lies in its ability to illuminate the biblical perspective on God, world and humanity with a clarity that is otherwise absent from the biblical narrative, and even much of theological discourse. This is not to say that philosophy sheds a bright light on every question and issue that arises from the biblical texts. But it is the case, in my view, that in certain key questions the aid of philosophy will greatly enhance our understanding of the biblical notions that are in, and more often behind, the text. Likewise, the lens of philosophical categories applied to 123  Otfried Hofius, “Neutestamentliche Exegese in systematisch-theologischer Verantwortung,” in Hofius, Exegetische Studien. WUNT 223. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2008, 269. 124  Hofius, “Neutestamentliche Exegese in systematisch-theologischer Verantwortung,” 272. 125  For a brief but solid introduction to the various strands of modern philosophy, see Kurt Salamun (ed.), Was ist Philosophie?. UTB 1000. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 5th enlarged ed., 2009. See also the very readable introduction by John D. Caputo, Philosophy and Theology. Nashville: Abingdon Press 2006.

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Pauline interpreters may also expose the cogency, or lack thereof, of their arguments and conclusions to understand Paul. With regard to our attempt to understand Paul, philosophical discourse offers indeed a fundamental interpretive perspective that is itself not visible on the surface of Pauline thinking. The question we are most interested in is the issue of the human situation, theologically speaking the issue of sin. This issue has deep, far-reaching and universal implications for every human being. But Paul does not address it philosophically. To get to the bottom of the plight of human existence, I will argue that an ontological analysis of sin is existentially the most appropriate philosophical discourse. Since I will discuss this question further in the next chapter, suffice it to say that the philosophical fit with existential analysis and Pauline thought lies in the corresponding of the formal structures of existence. I am speaking of the existential-ontological structures of Dasein, as it was suggested by Heidegger. In my use and appreciation of philosophy I follow Philo of Alexandria. Philo believed since all truth comes from God, there is no inherent contradiction between revelation, Torah and the best of Greek thought. It was his axiom that philosophy is the handmaid of theology and scripture. That always places scripture at the forefront but affords philosophical reflection a proper yet unobtrusive place in bringing these scriptures to light, or in our parlance, to facilitate an understanding of scripture.126

1.8  My Hermeneutical Assumptions and Prejudices Before we proceed it seems only fair for me to articulate what assumptions, positions and hermeneutical prejudices I bring to writing this book on Paul. The following points are not given in any order of priority or significance. 1. The overarching attempt I pursue in this book is to understand Paul. I am not primarily interested in explaining exegetical decisions, issues debated in current Pauline scholarship or even taking sides with one of the current “perspectives” on Paul. As will become evident in later chapters, I am employing an existential analysis of Dasein regarding sin, and then proceed to argue that the correspondence between sin and salvation must 126 As

Gabriel Marcel, “Die Verantwortlichkeit des Philosophen in der Welt von heute,” in Was ist Philosophie?, 64–80, here 65–67, reminds us, philosophy is not merely an abstract discipline but one that carries with it also social responsibility.

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be on the identical categorical level. In all of this I am proposing that a non-ontological and non-existential understanding of sin in Paul is in grave danger of underselling the apostle by constructing a soteriology that does not address the issue of sin. My hope is that every Pauline interpreter reflects hermeneutically, biblically, theologically and philosophically to become clear on what it takes to understand and not merely explain Paul. In that vein, the objective of this monograph is to illuminate the existential framework within which the Pauline interpreter can trace the salient features on the way to make coherent sense of Paul in our non-Pauline world, and thereby understand him and oneself. 2. I am not attempting another theological synthesis of Pauline thought along the lines of Bultmann, Ridderbos, Eichholz,127 Becker,128 Beker,129 Wright, Dunn,130 Sanders, Donaldson and many others. I rather hold the position that Paul’s thought is a display of various facets of an overall concept that has Jesus as the Christ as its focal point. However, I would not push that overall concept to the point where all facets must fit neatly into that concept. I also think that the contextual situation with his young congregations and the letters he wrote to them put Paul constantly in the position to clarify his own theological concepts. It remains an open question for me whether Paul ever attained a mature theological “overall concept” for himself. His hermeneutics were always in the making. My objective is rather to draw out the lines that are visible in Paul’s thinking, even if only as broken lines, and show how they still impact us today in our contemporary understanding of Paul vis-à-vis our context, theology and existence. 3. Our sources for understanding Paul are his letters and our own human existence. The two are inseparable. We cannot abstract the latter from the former; if we do, we will lose both. The foundation for our existential ana­ lysis is no doubt Paul’s letters and the content and substance expressed in them. In good scholarly fashion, we will attempt to understand what Paul said in these testimonies to his ongoing and contextual thinking. Even though they are of Pauline origin, I take Paul’s letters to contain God’s word. In other words, I take seriously that what Paul expressed in human language is in fact a divine word addressed to us human beings (see section 127 

Georg Eichholz, Die Theolgie des Paulus im Umriss. Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag, 4th ed. 1983. 128  Jürgen Becker, Paulus. Der Apostel der Völker. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck) 1989. 129  J. Christiaan Beker, Paul the Apostle: The Triumph of God in Life and Thought. Philadelphia: Fortress Press 1980. 130  James D. G. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle. Grand Rapids/Cambridge: Eerdmans 1998.

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Chapter 1:  The Questions of Pauline Hermeneutics

1.7 above). How and in what ways this word addresses our human situation is precisely the task of existential interpretation. 4. Hermeneutic biases and prejudices are deeply personal. This is true for every interpreter. On a personal note, like many women and men drawn to Paul, I too have often experienced life at its extreme edges, encircled by deep joy and pleasure, but likewise exhausted by suffering, disappointment, struggling, and untimely deaths. I say this because it is an existential prejudice that all academic work is profoundly impacted by our human existence and experiences. The traces and echoes of our souls do in fact impact our hermeneutic pathways and shape our intellectual output. Invisible, so to speak, to all hermeneutic formation is always the map of our emotional, spiritual and physical intelligence. And yet, this is not to say that therefore we cannot engage in solid and respectable academic work. 5. We must go beyond Paul – responsibly. To go beyond Paul is not going against Paul. Paul stands at the beginning of a long hermeneutical path of making sense of the life and teaching of Jesus in the context of Pharisaic Judaism. In that very process, Paul is also at the same time making sense of his own life as an apostle commissioned to teach the news that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah of Israel. In a sense, Paul is engaged in the double hermeneutic task of making sense of Jesus’ life and teaching while doing the same for himself. As Pauline scholars we are therefore drawn into the dynamic of making coherent what Paul understands about Jesus and himself. But we go beyond Paul, to return to our earlier metaphor, because we are building our house (see above 1.2). Pauline understanding is akin to the foundation of our construct while theological understanding is the completed house, garden and all. In other words, our contemporary existence requires that we go beyond mere exegesis of the historical Pauline letters. 6. I write this book as a scholar131 – and as a flesh-and-blood human being. I have been fascinated with Paul for decades and I am deeply convinced that theology and philosophy enhance our understanding of Paul. To repeat, to understand Paul we must go beyond Paul. Quite naturally for me, hand in hand with being a scholar is my being a Christian. I see no contradiction in terms of being both on an intellectual pursuit for understanding Paul and a personal commitment to faith lived out in my communities and the world. 131  I would actually prefer to use the term “intellectual.” But this designation conjures up images of arrogance and superiority that I do not want to communicate. The reason I prefer “intellectual” over “scholar” or “academic” is that the latter two are too close for my taste to “explanation” and “description” rather than “understanding.” But I do not want to push this distinction too far.

1.9  Perspectives and Outlook

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1.9  Perspectives and Outlook To build on what has been said so far, what are the specific tasks, topics and questions addressed in the following chapters? To repeat what I have said at the very beginning of this chapter, we are attempting to clarify the ever so deceptive statement: “Jesus is the answer.” If so, then what is the question? To what issue, problem, reality is Jesus the answer according to Paul? Existential Interpretation.  I have often enough now referred to existential interpretation. A first task, in chapter 2, is to discuss in detail why precisely this kind of interpretation is best suited for our understanding of Paul. I will argue that we relate to Paul not because we share the same faith, theology or ethics, but because we are human beings. Human existence is our foundational connection to Paul. This means that there are ontological-existential entities on the structural level that are true for Paul and for us. These ontological similarities are the ones we need to articulate and make fruitful for understanding. We approach understanding by drawing on Heidegger’s notion of truth as disclosing and applying it to Paul’s understanding of God’s word as the word of truth. In short, the word of truth is disclosing us before God and ourselves. The definition of the Problem: the Question of Sin.  The first and necessary task is to define the issue to which Paul’s letters and theology seek to provide an answer. Paul, his fellow Jews and the early Christians all shared the common conviction and experience that the world is not what it ought to be. There was something wrong with the world and how human beings experienced themselves in a world that brought suffering and ultimately death. Theologically speaking, we are addressing the plight of sin. But sin is not merely a theoretical question, or a theological aporia or a matter for a good discussion. Sin is also not just a hot topic for someone who is disposed toward negative thinking in an overwhelmingly and cheaply optimistic world. Sin is a matter of existential experience – for every single human being. The task in chapter 3 is to demonstrate how sin is both ontological and existential and what that means for us human beings. I will argue that the key to understanding is the distinction between sin (in the singular) and sins (in the plural). If we fail to grasp this fundamental Pauline difference, we will not be able to come to understand Paul, or Christian theology for that matter. This is a bold claim, but I will make my case. The Messiah.  On the most basic level of understanding Paul lies the question of understanding Paul’s view of Christ/the Messiah. In his Damascus experience Paul had a Christophany that henceforth changed his

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Chapter 1:  The Questions of Pauline Hermeneutics

entire existence. It is no understatement to claim that the encounter of the Messiah constituted the hermeneutical turnaround for the apostle. In chapter 4 will discuss the questions that Paul had to struggle with. In the centre of all his deliberations was the question of the death of the Messiah. Why did he have to die, what was accomplished by his death, for whom did he die? What relation does his death have with sin, specifically sin understood as an ontological-existential category (Existenzial)? Corresponding to the question of the Messiah is the question of Torah and Israel. What is the function of the covenant, of Torah and Israel? How does Paul think of and evaluate the Jewish foundations of life after his Damascus experience? And is there any correlation with sin at all, and if so, what is it? Salvation.  C. K. Barrett once remarked that “nothing more self-evident, and nothing more profound can be said about Paul’s theology than that it was a theology of salvation.”132 Although I agree with this sentiment, the real question is the substance of salvation. What really is salvation, who does the saving, what does it save from, whom or what does it save, for what purpose does it save and why should salvation matter to us in the first place. In chapter 5 we will discuss these kinds of questions in detail and show how salvation must be correlated to the issue it saves from. In other words, I will argue for a formal, categorical correspondence between sin as an ontological-existential category and salvation as the divine means to effectuate salvation. Faith.  No one can read the apostle Paul and not be confronted with the notion of faith or trust in God. Paul speaks repeatedly about being saved by faith (cf. Rom. 1:17, 3:25–26, 5:1; Gal. 2:16) and thus anchors salvation and faith in an interrelated dynamic. But what exactly is the nature of that relation? What is the role of faith to the divine initiative called salvation? Are we as human beings free and able to choose or reject faith? What precisely is faith in relation to understanding? What is the role of faith in our existence, how important is it? These kinds of questions will be discussed in chapter 6. Restoration of Life.  In chapter 7 we will discuss the final outcome of salvation. As Paul affirms: “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” (2 Cor. 5:17). Once again, we will argue that there must be a formal ontological correspondence between sin as an existential structure and the break132  C. K. Barrett, Paul. An Introduction to his Thought. Louisville: Westminster/ John Knox Press 1994, 56.

1.9  Perspectives and Outlook

43

ing of that power through the resurrection of the Messiah. The outcome is a total (eschatological) recreation of all life, the abolishing of evil as sin in all forms and the beginning of a new existence, already here and now. Foundation of Ethics.  Our understanding of sin as an Existenzial has far-reaching implications for our understanding of ethics. In chapter 8 our main task will be to demonstrate a formal correspondence between sin understood as an existential-ontological disruption of all life and the inadequacy of ethics to overcome sin understood in those terms. Even moral perfectionism, if it were possible, does not formally correspond to sin ontologically. The grounding of ethics is therefore elsewhere: in the love of the other in response to seeking and doing the will of God. Following the conclusion (chapter 9) of my formal presentation on how we may build on a solid foundation of understanding Paul, I include a postscript, consisting of two chapters. I will comment in chapter 10 on how my views on Paul mesh with the current majority view on Paul, namely the so-called new perspective on Paul. Given the fact that the new perspective has virtually overtaken almost all of Pauline scholarship, a few comments are in order. Although my goal was not to debate the new perspective when I started this project, as my work progressed it has become clear to me that there are irreconcilable differences between my existential reading of Paul and the new perspective. It will become evident in my discussion that the view on sin and sins of the new perspective, as I see it, are untenable. The understanding of Jesus as Messiah of Israel and a formal correspondence to the plight of sin are missing in that perspective. Said differently, I fail to see why the new perspective even needs the death of Jesus as Messiah. Finally, at the end, I will outline in chapter 11 why Paul is crucial for my own existential understanding of the world and human existence, why he has clarified my ways of being, thinking and living my own life.

Chapter 2

The Starting Points: Existence, Truth and Word Ἀδελφοί, μὴ παιδία γίνεσθε ταῖς φρεσὶν ἀλλὰ τῇ κακίᾳ νηπιάζετε, ταῖς δὲ φρεσὶν τέλειοι γίνεσθε. 1 Cor. 14:20 Täuschung durch Sprache, Ideologieverdacht oder gar Metaphysikverdacht, das sind heute so gewohnte Wendungen, daß von der Wahrheit des Wortes sprechen einer Provokation gleichkommt. Hans-Georg Gadamer1

2.1  Human Existence Between the years 1926 and 1936 Rudolf Bultmann presented the lecture Theologische Enzyklopädie on several occasions. In §  15 he discusses his understanding of theology and says the following: “Das Thema der Theo­ logie kann also auch bezeichnet werden als die von Gott bestimmte Exis­ tenz des Menschen” (the theme of theology may also be characterized as human existence under God’s influence).2 It has often been said, and sometimes been criticized, that Bultmann presents theology as anthropology or that he reduces theology to the level of anthropology. It is indeed the case that Bultmann presents his exposition of Paul’s theology as anthropology. “Jeder Satz über Gott ist zugleich ein Satz über den Menschen und umgekehrt” (every sentence about God is at the same time a sentence about human beings, and the other way around), he asserts. “Deshalb und in diesem Sinne ist die paulinische Theologie zugleich Anthropologie” (therefore and in this sense Pauline theology is anthropology).3 It is immediately 1  Hans-Georg Gadamer, “Von der Wahrheit des Wortes,” in Ästhetik und Poetik I: Kunst als Aussage. GW 8. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck) 1993, 37–57, here 37. 2 Rudolf Bultmann, Theologische Enzyklopädie, edited by Eberhard Jüngel and Klaus W. Müller. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck) 1984, 159. 3  Rudolf Bultmann, Theologie des Neuen Testaments. UTB 630. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 9th ed. 1984, 192.

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obvious from reading Bultmann’s entire introduction to Paul’s theology that he has no intention of reducing theology to anthropology or promoting it to a place in Paul that it does not deserve. There is a much more sophisticated reason for giving anthropology a central place in his presentation of Paul’s thinking. Bultmann sees an inherent dialectic in Pauline thought that is shaped by the dynamic between God and human being. For Paul, God acted concretely in history and human beings are thus placed in a living tension with God’s presence in the world and in their own lives. “So redet jeder Satz über Gott vom dem, was er am Menschen tut und vom Menschen fordert, und entsprechend umgekehrt jeder Satz über den Menschen von Gottes Tat und Forderung” (every sentence speaks of what God does for human beings and asks of human beings, and similarly every sentence about human beings speaks of God’s acts and demands).4 The key idea is that for Paul, indeed for the entire biblical story as such, God’s dealing with the world is not abstract but always in tangible relation to human beings. Bultmann says that Paul’s view of christology is therefore not a matter of the metaphysical being of Christ or speculation about God’s “natures.” Because of the concreteness of the incarnation of Jesus as the Messiah for humanity, “ist auch jeder Satz über Christus ein Satz über den Menschen und um­ gekehrt; und die paulinische Christologie ist zugleich Soteriologie” (every sentence about Christ is a sentence about human beings and also the reverse; and Pauline christology is at the same time soteriology).5 Bultmann’s position has had its critics, as for example his former student Ernst Käsemann. Käsemann does not want to concede methodological priority to anthropology because he sees the danger of either a “Christian metaphysic” or a “Christian humanism”6 and argues instead for a christological approach to Paul. He maintains strangely that ontological “structures are not reflections of realities; they are at most a condensation of reality; normally they are an abridgement of it, and at worst they may be its caricature.”7 It seems to me that while Käsemann adequately recognizes ontology is not identical with reality, he fails to see that ontological structures are inevitably the parameters for our reality. Nonetheless, Bultmann’s understanding of the dynamic between ontology, reality, christology and anthropology is more sophisticated than Käsemann allows for in his critique. 4 Bultmann,

Theologie des Neuen Testaments, 192. Theologie des Neuen Testaments, 192 (original emphasis). 6  Ernst Käsemann, “On Paul’s Anthropology,” in Käsemann, Perspectives on Paul. Philadelphia: Fortress Press 1971, 1–31, here 12. 7  Käsemann, “On Paul’s Anthropology,” 11. 5 Bultmann,

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Chapter 2:  The Starting Points: Existence, Truth and Word

For the sake of illustration, let us return to the metaphor of constructing our house from the previous chapter. The question of whether Paul’s theo­ logy is theocentric or anthropocentric or Christocentric or nomocentric and so on may be an important question to ask and I do not want to belittle it. However, my own position in this regard is that we should not confuse a methodological decision as being on the same level as a hermeneutical insight for understanding. To be clear: a theocentric or anthropocentric approach to Paul is secondary to understanding him. In the picture of the metaphor of constructing a house, we enter into the house through one of the doors. It may be the (theocentric) front door or a (anthropocentric) side door, but in the end the important thing is not through which door we came in, but that we are in the house. The doors (methodological approaches) are gateways into the house (understanding) but lose their significance for the sake of understanding. In the language of Gadamer’s hermeneutics (above 1.3), the doors represent the part and being in the house represents the whole. Though they are in relation, the whole is more important than the parts. In the end, any methodological path serves the larger aim of understanding. To return to Bultmann and his presentation of Paul’s thought from the perspective of anthropology. I think that Bultmann saw two things more clearly and far more deeply than many of his Pauline colleagues then and many Pauline scholars now. The first is the centrality of human existence. Given his close association with Heidegger and his openness to the philosopher’s ideas about existence, and his own personal existence between two world wars and the reality of the Nazi regime, Bultmann had a very profound experience and understanding of the predicament of human existence.8 The second clear vision was arguably Bultmann’s conviction that Paul’s theology deals in its core with the question of human existence and thus he claims that Paul’s theology is most appropriately developed as “die Lehre vom Menschen” (teaching about being human).9 This is not to assert, cautions Bultmann, that Paul developed a scientific view of humanity that describes the human being as an objective phenomenon in the world. Rather, Paul “sieht den Menschen immer in seiner Be­ ziehung zu Gott” (Paul always sees human beings in their relation to God).10 Given the inseparable dynamic between God and human existence in Bultmann’s theology, Hartmut Rosenau quite aptly speaks of Bult8  See Konrad Hammann, Rudolf Bultmann. Eine Biographie. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 3rd and revised ed. 2012. 9 Bultmann, Theologie des Neuen Testaments, 192. 10 Bultmann, Theologie des Neuen Testaments, 193.

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mann’s theology as Existenztheologie (theology of existence).11 The question that Bultmann addresses is simply “was das menschliche Dasein we­ sentlich ausmacht” (what genuinely authenticates human existence).12 The red thread that goes thus through all of Bultmann’s understanding of Paul is “die Rede vom Menschen als Rede von der Existenz” (speaking of human beings is speaking of existence).13 But what is existence?14 In his opus magnum of 1927, Sein und Zeit (Being and Time), Heidegger says that ontology aims at explicating the Being of Dasein, while the mode of Dasein is its existence.15 Heidegger also notes that “the ‘essence’ of Dasein lies in its existence.”16 To say that the mode or essence of Dasein is its existence is the affirmation that our life is simply that we “have” it, that we “are” alive.17 Life without existence is impossible. This does not mean that Dasein has an essence or content that we could define as a “what” or a subject-matter because “its essence lies rather in the fact that in each case it has its Being to be.”18 In less cryptic terminology Heidegger explains that “Dasein always understands itself in terms of its existence – in terms of a possibility of itself: to be itself or not to be itself… The question of existence never gets straightened out except through existing itself.”19 The way our Dasein – our concrete life – claims its true existence is by claiming the possibilities that are ontologically a possibility. 11  Hartmut Rosenau, “Theologie und Philosophie,” in Bultmann Handbuch, 395– 400, here 398. 12  Rosenau, “Theologie und Philosophie,” 399. 13  Christof Landmesser, “Anthropologie,” in Bultmann Handbuch, 334–343, here 336. 14 For a terse discussion of existence in Heidegger, see Christof Landmesser, Wahrheit als Grundbegriff in der neutestamentlichen Wissenschaft. WUNT 113. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 1999, 144–146. 15 Heidegger, Being and Time, translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. New York: Harper and Row 1962, 27, note 1 for an explanation of Dasein. Cf. Stanley J. Grenz, The Named God and the Question of Being. A Trinitarion Theo-Ontology. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press 2005, 114, for a paraphrase of “the nearly undefinable concept” of Dasein: it is linked closely “with human existence. Dasein is that reality which is concerned with the nature of its own being. Dasein wonders, What am I? How did I come to be? And what does my existence mean? Above all, Dasein is the being who asks the philosophical question of Being.” For an overall stimulating introduction to Heidegger, see Walter Biemel, Martin Heidegger. Rowohlts Bildmonographien. Hamburg 1973. On Dasein, see 42–55. 16 Heidegger, Being and Time, 67 (original emphasis). 17 Heidegger, Being and Time, 68: “because Dasein has in each case mineness [ Jemeinigkeit], one must always use a personal pronoun when one addresses it: ‘I am’, ‘you are’.” 18 Heidegger, Being and Time, 32–33. 19 Heidegger, Being and Time, 33.

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These possibilities are what Heidegger calls the ontological-existential structures of Dasein.

2.2  The Structures of Dasein Before Bultmann begins his formal presentation of Paul’s theology he sets out the framework of his discussion in a preliminary remark, by articulating the key question: “Was aber ist das spezifisch Menschliche, das der menschlichen Beziehung zu Gott ihren eigentümlichen Charakter gibt? Eben um sie zu verstehen, ist es notwendig, sich die Eigenart des menschlichen Seins, also die Strukturen dieses Seins, deutlich zu machen” (what is the specific human element that gives the relation between human being and God its unique character? In order to understand this, it is necessary to understand the distinctiveness of being human, that is to say the structures of being human).20 The language of these lines shows Bultmann’s indebtedness to Heidegger, who posed the question of Being anew in view of an ontological analysis of the meaning of being for Dasein. Heidegger assumes the facticity of Dasein and its asking for the meaning of its being. In the words of Heidegger himself: “Dass wir je schon in einem Seinsverständnis leben und der Sinn von Sein zugleich in Dunkel verhüllt ist, beweist die grundsätzliche Notwendigkeit, die Frage nach dem Sinn von ‘Sein’ zu wiederholen… Die Seinsfrage wiederholen besagt daher: erst einmal die Fragestellung zureichend ausarbeiten.”21 Heidegger assumes that in whatever human beings do and say they presume Being in a general and unspecified manner without knowing the meaning of Being. But Being (Sein) is different from being (Seiendem). Being as such is indefinable (undefinierbar) 22 while it depends on being. The difference between Being and being Heidegger later called the “ontological difference.”23 The task of philosophy, according to Heidegger, is the analysis of the ontological difference. This is not an abstract task but a phenomenological one. A phenomenon is a priori and irreducible “das Sich-an-ihm-selbst-zeigen20 Bultmann,

Theologie des Neuen Testaments, 193. Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit. GA 2. Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann, 7th ed. 1977, 6. Heidegger, Being and Time, 23–24: “the very fact that we already live in an understanding of Being and that the meaning of Being is still veiled in darkness proves that it is necessary in principle to raise this question again… So if it is to be revived, this means that we must first work out an adequate way of formulating it.” 22 Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, 5. 23 Cf. Landmesser, Wahrheit als Grundbegriff in der neutestamentlichen Wissenschaft, 113, note 11. 21 

2.2  The Structures of Dasein

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de, das Offenbare”24 (“‘phenomenon’ signifies that which shows itself in itself, the manifest).”25 Phenomenology analyzes the self-givenness of being (Seiendem) in view of Being (Sein). For Heidegger this means that ontology is only possible as phenomenology.26 In Gadamer’s words, for Heidegger “die unbegründbare und unableitbare Faktizität des Daseins, die Existenz… sollte die ontologische Basis der phänomenologischen Fragestellung darstellen” (the inscrutable and underivable facticity of Dasein, namely existence… should be the ontological basis of phenomenological questioning).27 Bultmann takes over these fundamental concepts from Heidegger and makes them fruitful for his understanding of Pauline thinking. As noted above, he sees his task as disclosing in Paul “die Eigenart des menschlichen Seins, also die Strukturen dieses Seins” (the distinctiveness of being human, that is to say the structures of being human). Like Heidegger, Bultmann assumes that there are universal structures of being that characterize both anthropos and cosmos. These structures are a priori, inescapable and irreducible and therefore equally constitutive for all human beings. In Heid­egger, these structures are called existential-ontological structures because they are universal and shape the Dasein of every person. This is to say that Bultmann assumes an “existenziale Grundbestimmung” (basic existential determinants) 28 of the human being. It is now crucial to understand that neither Heidegger nor Bultmann claim that these ontological structures are “simply there” and easily identifiable by phenomenological observation.29 As Rosenau says so aptly: “Was das menschliche Dasein wesentlich ausmacht, ist nicht gegenständlich gegeben, sondern erschliesst sich zuständlich, nicht vorfindlich, sondern befindlich, kann darum nicht kategorial, sondern nur existenzial ausgelegt werden” (what constitutes essential human Dasein is not given factually but appears circumstantially, not as given but as finding and can therefore 24 Heidegger,

Sein und Zeit, 38. Being and Time, 51. 26 Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, 48. 27  Hans-Georg Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode. Grundzüge einer philosophischen Hermeneutik. Hermeneutik I, GW 1. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 5th ed, 1986, 259. 28  Rosenau, “Theologie und Philosophie,” 399. 29 Landmesser, Wahrheit als Grundbegriff in der neutestamentlichen Wissenschaft, 144 says it well: “Die Allgemeinheit der Existenzialien ist also nicht eine nachträgliche Verallgemeinerung dessen, was am Dasein beobachtet werden kann, die Existenzialien sind vielmehr apriorisch-ontologische Grundstrukturen” (the generality of the existentials is therefore not a later generalization of what can be observed in Dasein, the existentials are rather apriori-ontological basic structures). 25 Heidegger,

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Chapter 2:  The Starting Points: Existence, Truth and Word

only be interpreted existentially but not categorically).30 In other words, the structures that characterize human Dasein cannot be objectified, measured and categorized as if they were entities of substance. They are a priori universal structures that exist incorporeally and hold sway over every human being. We encounter them only existentiell-onticly by means of our phenomenological openness toward being. Again, following Heidegger, Bultmann also adapts the distinction between existenzial and existentiell, [existenziell]31 as well as ontologisch and ontisch.32 The English rendering of these terms is existential and exis­ten­ tiell,33 ontological and ontic34 respectively. The main difference between these terminological nuances is decisive. Heidegger paired the terms existential-ontological and existentiell-ontic. The first pair is indicative of the universal ontological structures of human existence while the second pair is symptomatic of the individual experience of these general structures. While every Dasein is in the grip of such ontological structures as time, illness, suffering, joy and so on, the personal experience of these structures various according to our individual and unduplicable existence. The individual experience of the ontological structures is the ontic experience.35 Finally, Dasein in its everydayness moves always within its ontological structures. It cannot be otherwise; Dasein cannot be outside of these structures. These “Grundstrukturen des Daseins” (basic structures of Dasein)36 Heidegger calls Existenzialien and the interaction and interconnectedness of the Existenzialien he calls Existenzialität,37 rendered as existentiality in English.38 Concretely, he notes, “by ‘existentiality’ we understand the state 30 

Rosenau, “Theologie und Philosophie,” 399. Sein und Zeit, 17. Heidegger himself used the term existenziell, but in scholarly literature the spelling of the term is existentiell. I will employ the second term because it is closer to the English spelling and thus likely less confusing. 32 Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, 15. 33 Heidegger, Being and Time, 33, note 2. But here we have a terminological Achilles heel. All too often, theological and philosophical literature in English overlooks this crucial distinction and employs the term “existential” even in contexts when the concept indicates what Heidegger would have referred to as “existentiell.” 34 Heidegger, Being and Time, 31, note 3. 35  An excellent introduction to Heidegger’s basic concepts and terminology is provided in Landmesser, Wahrheit als Grundbegriff in der neutestamentlichen Wissenschaft, 111–146. 36 Cf. Landmesser, Wahrheit als Grundbegriff in der neutestamentlichen Wissenschaft, 143. 37 Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, 12. 38 Heidegger, Being and Time, 33. See also William Barrett, Irrational Man. A Study in Existential Philosophy. New York: Anchor Books 1990, 220. 31 Heidegger,

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of Being that is constitutive for those entities that exist.”39 What Heidegger contends about the existential-ontological analysis of Dasein and his emphasis on existentiality becomes crucially important for our understanding of sin, a topic we will discuss in the next chapter.

2.3  Paul’s Existence – Our Dasein In the previous chapter we discussed that every Pauline interpretation is necessarily a (historical) reconstruction and can only be done from the interpreter’s contemporary perspective, or more exactly, retrospective. We may now further clarify in precisely what manner we relate to Paul. To build on the preceding comments, we can now claim that on the most basic level we are connected to Paul by virtue of our human existence – and not by sharing the same theology or faith. Put differently, the most foundational – indeed the only – correlation between Paul and us is ontological and not theological, ethical or psychological. There are two important reasons for this claim. First, to say that the link between Paul and us is that we are human beings, is simply the phenomenological (in philosophical language: the existential-ontological) observation of the shared structures of our common humanity. This does not mean that Paul was a person identical to any of us; it rather means that like us Paul belonged to the entity human being, person. Following Heidegger, the belonging to the category “human being” presupposes that all persons share common structures that characterize their existence. In other words, human beings share basic ontological structures that make them identifiable precisely as human beings, beings distinct from other living organisms. On this existential-ontological level there are physiological, psychological and intellectual structures that all human beings share universally while retaining their ontic individuality. We are connected with Paul because we share with Paul existence on the ontological level, but not on the ontic level. Similarly, we share existential structures, but are unique human beings in the existentiell sphere. For our study of Paul, it is decisive to have a clear focus on the priority of being over thinking. In philosophical language, we can reverse the Cartesian dictum cogito ergo sum into sum ergo cogito.40 That Christian think39 Heidegger,

Being and Time, 33. a succinct discussion of the Cartesian watershed in the history of western philosophy and theology see Helmut Thielicke, Glauben und Denken in der Neuzeit. 40  For

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ing must begin with being as having priority over thinking was clearly seen by the young Bonhoeffer41 (following Heidegger42) and, in Pauline studies, by Stanislas Breton.43 The latter puts it succinctly when he says “God thinks me, therefore I am.”44 In other words, our created existence, and more particularly the sharing of the common existential-ontological structures of created personhood is what links us with Paul. Like Paul we are created in the image of God and share in the structures that characterize us as human beings. In a similar vein, Martin Luther expressed it perhaps best when he said creatus sum, ergo sum (“I am created, therefore I am”).45 We could also say for our purposes Deus est (God is) or Deus dixit (God said), ergo cogito. What is crucial for our understanding is that certainty of being is not an epistemological act of the mind’s self-cognition, but an ontological facticity that stems from God’s being who created us. This order is irreversible. I would also allege that this sequence was implicit in Paul, as it was in biblical Judaism and early Christianity. At any rate, the point of all these considerations is simply that we are created as human beings, our existence is given to us by God and is characterized by existential-ontological structures that we as human beings all share. We are connected with Paul only on that basis. In other words, we are not principally one with Paul because of a shared faith, but because of our common personhood. Second, it is a universal phenomenon that every human being is in search of a meaning for his or her life. This quest for meaning is part of the basic ontological-existential structure of human existence; it is an a priori given reality of Dasein46 and not something that we first must become conscious of and desire it. Heidegger maintains explicitly that the “concept of ‘meaning’ is one which is ontologico-existential in principle”47 and that “meaning is an existentiale of Dasein, not a property attaching to entities, lying Die grossen Systeme der Theologie und Religionsphilosophie. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 2nd ed. 1988, 60–69. 41  Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Act and Being: Transcendental Philosophy and Ontology in Systematic Theology (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English 2), translated by H. Martin Rumscheidt, edited by Wayne W. Floyd (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996), 70. 42  Cf. Heidegger, Being and Time, 28–30, on the ontological priority of the question of Being. 43  Cf. Stanislas Breton, A Radical Philosophy of Saint Paul. New York: Columbia University Press, 2011, 39. 44 Breton, A Radical Philosophy of Saint Paul, 39. 45  Cf. Jens Zimmermann, Recovering Theological Hermeneutics: An IncarnationalTrinitarian Theory of Interpretation. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic 2004, 76. 46 Heidegger, Being and Time, 32. 47 Heidegger, Being and Time, 193.

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‘behind’ them.”48 By this he asserts that our search for a meaningful life is not something that we eventually discover or find interesting among many other things. Meaning is not something that is a mere option among many other opportunities in life, but “meaning is that wherein the intelligibility of something maintains itself.”49 For Heidegger, “only Dasein can be meaningful [sinnvoll] or meaningless [sinnlos]” because Dasein is always a “disclosedness of Being-in-the-world.”50 Authentic understanding is therefore not logical, abstract or theoretical insight. It is rather that “the world opens around us… [and] this open-ness, or standing open, of the world must always be given,”51 notes Barrett. “For to exist means to stand beyond myself in a world that opens before me.”52 In the search to exist, and in that “standing” to find meaning lies our point of connection with Paul and generally with all human beings. We all seek a life that is meaningful. Like Paul himself made significant efforts to figure out the meaning of his life vis-à-vis the appearing of the Messiah, so too, we strive to find meaning in our Dasein, religiously and otherwise. A quick aside. One of the consequences of deriving meaning from an ontological-existential anchor is the rejection of what I think of as the “Stendahl trap.” It is by now a common mantra among Pauline scholars that it is illegitimate to ask questions of Paul that he himself did not ask. For Stendahl (whom I very much appreciate as a keen observer of Paul within the larger context of western thought) and his advocates, it is illegitimate to ask the psychologically motivated questions Luther did pose,53 and by extension to raise questions that betray a modern or postmodern signature. We find a representative expression of this position in Magnus Zetterholm’s summary: “The search for the historical Paul cannot be limited to finding a Paul who makes theological sense for the present-day church, but one who makes sense in a first-century context, before Augustine and Luther.”54 On an obvious level, to be sure, this is a reminder for all 48 Heidegger,

Being and Time, 193. Being and Time, 193. 50 Heidegger, Being and Time, 193; original emphasis. 51 Barrett, Irrational Man. A Study in Existential Philosophy, 221. 52 Barrett, Irrational Man. A Study in Existential Philosophy, 222 (text slightly altered). Etymologically, “to exist” comes from Latin existere/exsistere and has the meaning “to step out, stand forth, emerge, appear.” 53  Cf. Krister Stendahl, Paul among Jews and Gentiles. Philadelphia: Fortress Press 1976. For a brief discussion of Stendahl’s views, see Stephen Westerholm, Perspectives Old and New on Paul. The “Lutheran” Paul and His Critics. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2004, 146–149. 54  Magnus Zetterholm, “Paul within Judaism: the State of the Questions,” in Mark 49 Heidegger,

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Pauline interpreters that we need to work with the tools of the trade to recover the “historical” Paul in his Jewish context (see above 1.5 and 1.7). But on a deeper level, to be satisfied with a mere historical retrieval of Paul is both impossible and contravenes the ontology of our human existence. By nature, we do ask questions of meaning; and these our questions originate from our innermost contemporary being. There is nothing wrong with that and we do not need to apologize for asking legitimate post-modern existential questions. It is time that scholars avoid the hermeneutical trap that Stendahl inadvertently set up. Too many have fallen into it.

2.4  Dasein and Meaning To say all of this in plain language, Heidegger wants to suggest that our human search for meaning is a given that takes place in the world in which we live and can lead to either an authentic or inauthentic existence.55 The human quest for meaning is part of the basic ontological-existential structure of human existence; it is an a priori reality, it is the distinguishing feature of personhood as such. In short: every person who has existence, who lives, desires a meaningful life. To claim that the search for meaning is our ontological structure entails that we do not have to motivate ourselves to think whether or not we desire a meaningful life. Every one of us human beings desires automatically, unknowingly, consciously and subconsciously a meaningful life, irrespective of age, gender, geography, education, personality, economics, capability, status etc. To express it differently: Existence that seeks meaning, or existence that seeks understanding (modifying Anselm) – this is our basic human ontological and existential structure. In Emmanuel Levinas’ words, human “experience is a reading, an understanding of sense, an exegesis, a hermeneutic, and not an intuition.”56 This sense-making of our being “arises from our participation in the historical, linguistic, social and temporal structures of being.”57 In other words, the ontological-existential priority of being over thinking implies that “meaning resides no longer merely in the human mind but permeates a world in D. Nanos and Magnus Zetterholm (eds), Paul within Judaism. Restoring the First-Century Context to the Apostle. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2015, 31–51, here 46. 55 Heidegger, Being and Time, 277, 312–313. 56  Emmanuel Levinas, Humanism of the Other, translated by Nidra Poller. Urbana: University of Illinois Press 2003, 13. 57 Jens Zimmermann, Incarnational Humanism. A Philosophy of Culture for the Church in the World. Downers Grove: IVP Academic 2012, 210.

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which things are always given as something meaningful to us.”58 As human beings we are in this world, concretely and not abstractly. We are, therefore, we seek meaning. This basic ontological structure – existence in search for meaning – is what connects us today with Paul. Just as Paul’s entire life may be characterized as engaging in the search for meaning, so too, we desire to find meaning and purpose for our lives. It is not just either human existence or the search for meaning, but both. In fact, the two belong together as the two sides of a coin: human existence in search for meaning is our only basic point of connection to Paul without the danger of anachronism. Most importantly, therefore, the search for meaning has as its starting point an ontological reality and not an epistemological premise. But that search for meaning and understanding is not accessible directly to us; meaning is not “just there,” and we must just claim it. Meaning is always mediated, or in postmodern jargon, it is always constructed. In Pauline studies, the meaning of Paul is constructed in the crucible of text, theology, philosophy and the search for a meaningful existence. How such a meaningful striving against meaning may take shape is passionately illuminated in a passage by Jacob Taubes, at a time when he already felt the clutches of his own impending death. In his last lecture on Paul, reflecting on Benjamin, Adorno and Barth, he concludes: “If God is God, then he can’t be coaxed out of our soul. There is a prius here, an a priori. Something has to happen from the other side; then we see, when our eyes are pierced open. Otherwise we see nothing.”59

2.5 Truth For people religious or otherwise, one of the most puzzling and most confusing topics is the question of truth. Pilate’s famous questioning of Jesus, “What is truth? (τί ἐστιν ἀλήθεια; John 18:38)”60 has become paradigmatic in the sense that it apparently indicates the futility of trying to make it intelligible. Who really knows the truth, who can actually define what truth is and who has the right to make any claim on truth? To be sure, even Jesus 58 Zimmermann,

Incarnational Humanism, 211. Jacob Taubes, The Political Theology of Paul. Translated by Dana Hollander. Stanford: Stanford University Press 2004, 76. 60  Søren, Kierkegaard, Training in Christianity, translated by Walter Lowrie, edited by John F. Thornton and Susan B. Varenne. New York: Vintage Books 2004, 182–188, has a profound discussion of Pilate’s question and the question of truth in general. 59 

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himself assumed to be the truth: ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ ὁδὸς καὶ ἡ ἀλήθεια καὶ ἡ ζωή (John 14:6). Truth is most often understood to be ethical, or theological and therefore in conflict with opposing and conflictual truth claims made by other religious adherents. In view of these quandaries, what can we add that unravels the intricacies and impasse so often associated with a discussion on truth? And how can Paul help us in this regard? In existential hermeneutics truth is understood as ontological, that is to say that it is an Existenzial, an ontological-existential category. 61 Truth understood in this way has two implications. First, to say that truth is ontological, that it is an Existenzial, immediately distances truth from the semantic-epistemological level. This is to say that truth is primarily not a matter of a truthful utterance or a matter of a person speaking the truth rather than a lie. I am again following Heidegger when he says that “everything depends on our steering clear of any conception of truth which is construed in the sense of ‘agreement’.”62 In other words, we are not concerned here with truth as if it were a theological (i.e. the right thing to believe) or ethical (i.e. the right thing to do) truth. Truth is not about one person being right and therefore the other person being wrong. To be sure, the notion of truth does contain such elements, and even Paul himself insists on speaking the truth, but truth as such is much more profound and significant. Second, and more important for our discussion, truth is an Existenzial. Heidegger maintains that since “truth rightfully has a primordial connection with Being, then the phenomenon of truth comes within the range of the problematic of fundamental ontology.”63 Moreover, “‘Being-true’ (‘truth’) means Being-uncovering”64 and “Being-true as Being-uncovering is a way of Being for Dasein.”65 What Heidegger means with all of this is that “the most primordial phenomenon of truth is first shown by the existential-ontological foundation of uncovering.”66 Truth, in short, has to do with the structures of Dasein and the uncovering of these structures in relation to our existence. Truth as an Existenzial is thus the affirmation that there are ontological structures that determine our existence for what it actually is, regardless of what we as human beings think of 61  Cf. Landmesser, 157, note 301, citing Heidegger: “Wahrheit muss als fundamentales Existenzial begriffen werden” (truth must be understood as a fundamental existential category). 62 Heidegger, Being and Time, 57. See also Heidegger’s discussion of traditional conceptions of truth; cf. 257. 63 Heidegger, Being and Time, 256. 64 Heidegger, Being and Time, 256. 65 Heidegger, Being and Time, 257. 66 Heidegger, Being and Time, 263; original emphasis.

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these structures. Since these structures are given, so is the truth within which we live structurally. In this sense, existentially-ontologically speaking, we cannot either construct or deconstruct truth. Hence, only in knowing the truth of our existence is it possible to come to an authentic life. The idea of truth being an entity of uncovering, Heidegger finds in both Greek etymology and conception. The Greek word ἀλήθεια, typically translated as “truth” in philosophical and biblical narratives, consists of the privative α and the stem λαθ (“to be concealed, to be covered”). The term ἀλήθεια thus marks the semantic domain of “un-covering, un-concealing,”67 or Unverborgenheit (unhiddenness). Truth is the un-covering of the basic existential-ontological structures of our Dasein. These structures are not constructed by human beings, and thus truth is both beyond construction and deconstruction. Truth is simply the un-hiding of these structures that define us in our existence. Truth is thus the bringing to light the conditions of our being. As Bultmann put so nicely: ἀλήθεια “vollzieht sich nicht, sondern sie ist da, kann wahrgenommen oder auch nicht wahrgenommen, entdeckt oder verdeckt werden” ([truth] does not happen but is there, may be perceived or not, can be discovered or covered up). 68 Put differently, because truth is ontologically-existentially located outside of us, namely in the structures that determine our existence, truth aims at un-concealing the reality that precisely defines and limits our Dasein. As such, truth is the rediscovering of nudity (see below 3.2), the making nudity nude again. It is the going back to the most basic structure, to a structure that cannot be reduced any further, just as a completely nude person cannon be made nude any further. Truth, we may say, is nudity, since nudity is the un-covered, un-concealed and un-hidden way of original being. 69 In this sense, only the nude person is whole and authentic.

2.6  The Word of Truth The Greek notion of truth as that of un-covering, un-concealing or nuding existential-ontological structures of human existence is tightly connected 67 

Cf. Heidegger, Being and Time, 57, note 1. Bultmann, “Untersuchungen zum Johannesevangelium,” in Bultmann, Exegetica, Erich Dinkler (ed), Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck) 1967 (orig. 1928), 124–197, here 147. 69 Giorgio Agamben, Nudities, translated by David Kishik and Stefan Pedatella. Stanford: Stanford University Press 2011, 58, rightly stresses, citing Erik Peterson, “that nudity appears only after sin.” 68 Rudolf

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with the theme of the logos. ἀλήθεια and λόγος are conceptually correlated. Heidegger discusses the meaning of λόγος in Plato and Aristotle70 but redefines its meaning as “discourse” in a new way. To be sure, λόγος is discourse, but for Heidegger in a more foundational manner. “The ‘Being-true’ of the λόγος as ἀληθεύειν,” Heidegger argues “means that in λέγειν as ἀποφαίνεσθαι the entities of which one is talking must be taken out of their hiddenness; one must let them be seen as something unhidden (ἀληθές); that is, they must be discovered.”71 The primary function of the λόγος is thus ἀπόφανσις namely the “mode of making manifest in the sense of letting something be seen by pointing it out.”72 The search for truth is thus not an attempt to find out what is really true or false in either an ethical or theological sense, but the un-covering of truth happens on a much deeper level, namely on the ontological one as the un-covering of the structures that determine the forms and boundaries of our human existence. There is now an extraordinarily interesting and decisive detail in both Jesus and Paul: namely the connection between ἀλήθεια and λόγος. In his farewell discourse in John, Jesus himself speaks of ὁ λόγος ὁ σὸς ἀλήθειά ἐστιν (John 17:17). Here Jesus insists that the λόγος is truth. Elsewhere Jesus says ἐγὼ δὲ ὅτι τὴν ἀλήθειαν λέγω, οὐ πιστεύετέ μοι (John 8:45, cf. 16:7) and thus makes exactly the same connection that Heidegger sees in the un-covering of ἀλήθεια by means of the λέγειν, namely the un-hiding of the structures of our being. Even more to the point, in John 8:32 Jesus announces: καὶ γνώσεσθε τὴν ἀλήθειαν, καὶ ἡ ἀλήθεια ἐλευθερώσει ὑμᾶς (“and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free”). It is indeed astonishing how close the Fourth Gospel comes here to an existential interpretation in that understanding (knowledge)73 of truth is the basis for freedom, or in existential terminology, an authentic life. Paul goes even a step further. There is a deliberate connection between ἀλήθεια, λόγος and εὐαγγέλιον. In 2 Corinthins 6 Paul makes his apology as an apostle to the Corinthian congregation and in that context says that he commended himself ἐν λόγῳ ἀληθείας, ἐν δυνάμει θεοῦ (2 Cor. 6:7). If we take λόγος in the sense that Heidegger suggests as a dis-closing or un-covering discourse, it is telling that Paul connects it with truth. In other 70 

Cf. Heidegger, Being and Time, 55–58. Being and Time, 56–57. 72 Heidegger, Being and Time, 56. 73  In John 16:13 we read that ὅταν δὲ ἔλθῃ ἐκεῖνος, τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς ἀληθείας, ὁδηγήσει ὑμᾶς ἐν τῇ ἀληθείᾳ πάσῃ (when the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth); see also John 14:17, 15:26. The Holy Spirit is part of the divine being and mystery that brings about understanding of truth in human Dasein. 71 Heidegger,

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words, Paul’s language strongly suggests that he preaches “the dis-closing logos of truth-un-hiding,” an event that he further identifies as taking place in the power of God.74 In Galatians 2 Paul reiterates how he made the case for his gospel during his second visit to Jerusalem and argues against Peter’s hypocritical behaviour in Antioch in view of the gospel. In the first case he notes in Gal. 2:5: οἷς οὐδὲ πρὸς ὥραν εἴξαμεν τῇ ὑποταγῇ, ἵνα ἡ ἀλήθεια τοῦ εὐαγγελίου διαμείνῃ πρὸς ὑμᾶς (“we did not submit to them even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might always remain with you”). In his dispute with Peter in Gal. 2:14 he insists: ἀλλ᾽ ὅτε εἶδον ὅτι οὐκ ὀρθοποδοῦσιν πρὸς τὴν ἀλήθειαν τοῦ εὐαγγελίου, εἶπον τῷ Κηφᾷ ἔμπροσθεν πάντων, Εἰ σὺ Ἰουδαῖος ὑπάρχων ἐθνικῶς καὶ οὐχὶ Ἰουδαϊκῶς ζῇς, πῶς τὰ ἔθνη ἀναγκάζεις Ἰουδαΐζειν; (“but when I saw that they were not acting consistently with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, ‘If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews’?”). In both instances75 Paul employs the expression ἡ ἀλήθεια τοῦ εὐαγγελίου to characterize his preaching. The content of his gospel is such that it un-covers truth. The truth Paul has in mind, we may surmise, is in broad strokes the truth about God and humanity, in other words, the question about the divine-human relation. Landmesser says it well: “Mit dem Ausdruck ἀλήθεια τοῦ εὐαγγελίου hat Paulus in Gal 2,5.14 einen Begriff eingesetzt, mit dem er das ganze Evangelium unter dem Gesichtspunkt zusammenfasst, dass allein die vom ihm unterstellte semantische Bestimmtheit des Evangeliums der Wirklichkeit des Verhältnisses zwischen dem heiligen Gott und dem sündigen Menschen entspricht” (with the expression ἀλήθεια τοῦ εὐαγγελίου in Gal. 2:5, 14, Paul employs a concept by which he summarizes the entire gospel from the perspective that only his understanding of the semantic specificity of the gospel corresponds to the reality of the relation between a holy God and sinful human being).76

74  Gospel, power and salvation are also connected in Rom. 1:16: οὐ γὰρ ἐπαισχύνομαι τὸ εὐαγγέλιον, δύναμις γὰρ θεοῦ ἐστιν εἰς σωτηρίαν παντὶ τῷ πιστεύοντι, Ἰουδαίῳ τε πρῶτον καὶ Ἕλληνι (“For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek”). 75  For an exegetical discussion of these passages see Otfried Hofius, “‘Die Wahrheit des Evangeliums.’ Exegetische und theologische Erwägungen zum Wahrheitsanspruch der Paulinischen Verkündigung,” in idem, Paulusstudien II. WUNT 143. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2002, 17–37 and Landmesser, Wahrheit als Grundbegriff in der neutestamentlichen Wissenschaft, 223–238. 76 Landmesser, Wahrheit als Grundbegriff in der neutestamentlichen Wissenschaft, 238.

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Hofius aptly specifies the content of the truth of the gospel. When Paul’s preaching is characterized as the proclaiming of the truth,77 the apostle assumes “dass die ‘Wahrheit’ den Gegenstand der Verkündigung bildet und daher mit dem Inhalt des Evangeliums selbst identisch ist” (that ‘truth’ is the object of proclamation and hence is identical with the content of the gospel).78 What Paul understands to be the content of the truth of the gospel he articulated quite evidently in Gal. 3:1: namely, the crucified Christ (οἷς κατ᾽ ὀφθαλμοὺς Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς προεγράφη ἐσταυρωμένος). Quite instructive in this regard is also 2 Cor. 4:2. Here Paul contrasts the falsification of God’s word with the disclosing of truth (δολοῦντες τὸν λόγον τοῦ θεοῦ ἀλλὰ τῇ φανερώσει τῆς ἀληθείας). In other words, the expression “truth of the gospel” refers in Paul to both content and manner of proclamation. In two deutero-Pauline passages, we find a remarkable expression that connects logos, truth and gospel. In Eph 1:13, Paul praises the Ephesians: ἐν ᾧ καὶ ὑμεῖς ἀκούσαντες τὸν λόγον τῆς ἀληθείας, τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τῆς σωτηρίας ὑμῶν, ἐν ᾧ καὶ πιστεύσαντες ἐσφραγίσθητε τῷ πνεύματι τῆς ἐπαγγελίας τῷ ἁγίῳ (“in him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit”). Similar to 2 Cor. 6:7, here too Paul, or his scribe, employs the expression τὸν λόγον τῆς ἀληθείας, thus emphasizing the dis-closing and un-hiding qualities of both the logos and truth. But now an apposition is added in the phrase τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τῆς σωτηρίας ὑμῶν which thus explicitly identifies the disclosing of the logos-truth with the gospel that proclaims salvation. The same conceptual connection between logos, truth and gospel is also evident in Col. 1:5: διὰ τὴν ἐλπίδα τὴν ἀποκειμένην ὑμῖν ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς, ἣν προηκούσατε ἐν τῷ λόγῳ τῆς ἀληθείας τοῦ εὐαγγελίου79 (“because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. You have heard of this hope before in the word of the truth, the gospel”). And in 77  Cf. Otfried Hofius, “‘Die Wahrheit des Evangeliums,’ 31: “Die Erkenntnis, dass wahr ist, was die Apostel als die ‘Wahrheit des Evangeliums’ bezeugen, verdankt sich einzig und allein dem Wirken Gottes im Heiligen Geist. Das heisst: Das gepredigte Evangelium erweist selbst seine Wahrheit, indem es als ‘Kraft Gottes zur Rettung’ den Glauben schafft, der die Wahrheit erkennt und aus ihr lebt” (The knowledge that what the apostles testify as the ‘truth of the gospel’ is true owes itself solely to the work of God in the Holy Spirit. That means: The preached gospel itself proves its truth by creating faith as the ‘power of God for salvation,’ which recognizes the truth and lives from it). 78  Hofius, “‘Die Wahrheit des Evangeliums’,” 23. 79  The gospel is further specified by Paul in Gal. 1:6–7. There is no gospel (εἰς ἕτερον εὐαγγέλιον, ὃ οὐκ ἔστιν ἄλλο) other than the gospel about the Messiah (τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τοῦ Χριστοῦ).

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Rom. 1:16 the logos-truth, the εὐαγγέλιον, receives a universal significance in that it is the power of God for salvation (δύναμις γὰρ θεοῦ ἐστιν εἰς σωτηρίαν), for both Jew and Greek. Paul links together the logos, truth and the gospel of God in such a way that if one of these would be eliminated from the unity the other would also lose their significance. In the language of existential hermeneutics, Paul has placed in the centre the question of truth and bound its un-hiding to the logos of God, 80 proclaimed in the gospel whose ambassador he is. Bultmann says it well: “Der letzte und tiefste Sinn des griechischen ἀληθεία-Begriffs ist also, sofern ἀληθεία Erschlossenheit bedeutet, der, dass ἀληθεία die Erschlossenheit meines eigenen Daseins ist, und zwar unter der Voraussetzung, dass diese Erschlossenheit sich mir im λόγος eröffnet, und dass ich in ihr zur Eigentlichheit meines Daseins kommen soll und kommen kann” (the ultimate and deepest sense of the Greek notion of ἀληθεία, then, insofar as ἀληθεία means disclosedness, is that ἀληθεία is the discloseness of my own Dasein, and this on the condition that this disclosedness opens up to me in the λόγος, and that in it I should and can come to the authenticity of my Dasein). 81 Bultmann represents Pauline thinking quite accurately when he couples the knowledge of truth with that of the logos; the first depends on the second. Even though our understanding of truth is mediated by the logos – both incarnate and written – it is not an automatic response that once we read the Word of God that therefore we also come to understand truth. Truth is further mediated by God’s self-disclosure, or in more traditional language, the act of revelation.

2.7  Truth and Revelation In an untypical reflection on the development of Protestant theology, Ga­ damer points out that “die Idee der Offenbarung” (the idea of revelation) is rooted in the conviction that “der Mensch nicht aus Eigenem zu einem Verständmis seiner selbst zu gelangen vermag” (a person is unable from oneself to arrive at a self-understanding). 82 Such a conviction is as old as the Christian faith and has been perceptively articulated by Augustine in his autobiographical reflections when he realized “dass alle Versuche des Menschen, sich aus sich selbst und von der Welt her, über die man als die seine Cf. 1 Thess. 2:13 ἐδέξασθε οὐ λόγον ἀνθρώπων ἀλλὰ καθώς ἐστιν ἀληθῶς λόγον θεοῦ. Bultmann, “Untersuchungen zum Johannesevangelium,” 152–153. 82  Hans-Georg Gadamer, “Die Marburger Theologie,” in Gadamer, Neuere Philosophie, GW 3. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck) 1987, 203. 80 

81 

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verfügt, zu verstehen, scheitern” (every human attempt fails to understand oneself from oneself and from the world which we control). 83 What Ga­ damer wants to underscore in the history of theology is simply that it is impossible for a person to arrive at an adequate self-understanding, apart from revelation.84 Bultmann’s theology was predicated on the conviction that “der Mensch sei seiner selbst nicht mächtig” (a human being does not have total control over oneself).85 For Bultmann, Bonhoeffer and others this meant that because of the dominance of the power of sin, human beings are categorically incapable of attaining a proper self-understanding. A proper self-understanding is impossible because a self that is dominated by the power of sin cannot perceive itself as being outside of the truth of its Dasein. All insights, even the phenomenological perception of a world gone wrong, is not on the same level as that of understanding the truth of my being through revelation. Put differently, the dominance of sin will in every human being distort the perception of one’s own self. The darkness of sin prevents the light to shine on the truth of one’s being. In his discussion of Heidegger, the young Bonhoeffer clearly saw that even an ontological analysis of Dasein cannot overcome the limit that sin poses for the knowledge of truth. Just as sin cannot perceive itself as sin (see below 3.9), so likewise sin cannot place a person into the truth, into the position in which one can understand oneself in the authentic disclosedness of one’s being as sinner. Bonhoeffer remarks that “through revelation there is only sinful or pardoned existence, without potentiality.”86 Bonhoeffer rejects the emphasis Heidegger places on possibility or potentiality. The reason Bonhoeffer rejects potentiality rests in his conviction that salvation is something given to us and understood only by revelation, from “the outside.” For him, the human condition is such that we find ourselves already and always in the contingent state of being governed either by sin or by grace. In his own words: “The concept of possibility… includes the possibility of an ontological understanding of Dasein unaffected by revelation. But seen from the position of revelation, ‘to be possible’ in relation to sin or grace (whether existential or existentiell) always means to be already really in one or the 83 

Gadamer, “Die Marburger Theologie,” 203. Cf. Gadamer, “Die Marburger Theologie,” 205, and the tension that arose between Heidegger and Bultmann in regard to the possibility of an authentic Selbstauffassung. In spite of his existentialist hermeneutic, Bultmann held on to revelation, but the Heidegger after the Kehre, Gadamer argues, forfeited “jeden existenziellen Sinn … von der Eigentlichkeit des Daseins” (any existential sense … of the authenticity of existence). 85  Rosenau, “Theologie und Philosophie,” 399. 86  DBWE 2, 97. 84 

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other.”87 It may be the case that Bonhoeffer misunderstood Heidegger88 in setting up an either or between sin and grace, for even in a state of grace we are still touched ontically by the power of sin. In other words, the ontological condition of possibility does not nullify the power of revelation. In that sense Bonhoeffer is correct when he rejects that “human beings could place themselves into the truth, that they could somehow withdraw to a deeper being of their own, apart from their being sinner, their ‘not being in the truth.’ Being in Adam would, consequently, have to be regarded as a potentiality of a more profound ‘possibility of being in the truth.’ It would rest on a being untouched by sin.”89 But since it is impossible for a person to place oneself into the truth, Bonhoeffer argues that there has to be an “outside.” He argues that “it is the genuine ‘from outside’ that gives us an understanding of Dasein, that makes intelligible that this ‘from outside’ is what places us into truth.”90 The “from outside” is the event of revelation, according to Bultmann “this means that Jesus Christ confronts men in the kerygma and nowhere else.”91 Concretely, the Word of God is the written record of the revealed self-disclosure of God. The content of that word is Jesus the Christ, as both the incarnate logos and the logos disclosed in the holy scriptures. In the kerygma, Bultmann asserts, “the event of the summons discloses to the person a situation of existential self-understanding” in that “it confronts me with ‘salvation’ (σωτηρία) or ‘destruction’ (ἀπώλεια), with ‘life’ or ‘death’.”92 Paul himself draws on the act of ἀποκαλύπτω nine times (the noun ἀποκάλυψις occurs 12 times, for example in Gal. 1:12) in what we consider the authentic Pauline letters. Both the justice and the wrath of God are “revealed.” A good example is Rom. 1:17–18: δικαιοσύνη γὰρ θεοῦ 87 

DBWE 2, 97. Cf. DBWE 2, 96, note 24. Being and Time, 183, considers “possibility, as an existentiale,” as one of the ontological-existential categories of Dasein. For him that means that “Dasein is the possibility of Being-free for its ownmost potentiality-for-Being.” It seems to me that Bonhoeffer did not fully grasp that Heidegger wants to emphasize that without possibility/potentiality on the ontological level, life as such would be restricted in its aim of authentic being. To juxtapose potentiality to revelation is a non-categorical correspondence. 89  DBWE 2, 136. 90  DBWE 2, 110. 91  Rudolf Bultmann, “The Historical Jesus and the Theology of Paul,” in Bultmann, Faith and Understanding I, translated by Louise Pettibone Smith, edited by Robert W. Funk. London: SCM Press 1969, 220–246, here 241. 92  Rudolf Bultmann, “The Concept of the Word of God in the New Testament,” in Bultmann, Faith and Understanding I, translated by Louise Pettibone Smith, edited by Robert W. Funk. London: SCM Press 1969, 286–312, here 301 (translation slightly altered). 88 Heidegger,

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ἐν αὐτῷ ἀποκαλύπτεται ἐκ πίστεως εἰς πίστιν, καθὼς γέγραπται, Ὁ δὲ δίκαιος ἐκ πίστεως ζήσεται. Ἀποκαλύπτεται γὰρ ὀργὴ θεοῦ ἀπ᾽ οὐρανοῦ ἐπὶ πᾶσαν ἀσέβειαν καὶ ἀδικίαν ἀνθρώπων τῶν τὴν ἀλήθειαν ἐν ἀδικίᾳ κατεχόντων (“For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, The one who is righteous will live by faith. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of those who by their wickedness suppress the truth”). And in Romans 16:25 Paul brings together the gospel, the kerygma of Jesus the Messiah and the revelation of the mystery: τῷ δὲ δυναμένῳ ὑμᾶς στηρίξαι κατὰ τὸ εὐαγγέλιόν μου καὶ τὸ κήρυγμα Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, κατὰ ἀποκάλυψιν μυστηρίου χρόνοις αἰωνίοις σεσιγημένου (“Now to God who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages”). For Paul, there is a crucial interplay between the content of the gospel (Jesus the Messiah) and that this gospel is revealed both to him personally, but also universally in the kerygma. That the end of the kerygma is faith, presents a theme we will return to in chapter 6. Hofius employs the expression principium verbi divini to describe the self-efficacious character of the revealed kerygma about Jesus the Messiah recorded in the holy scripture of both the Old and the New Testament.93 By the expression principium verbi divini he means to suggest that the word of God is its own power that bears witness to salvation. Elsewhere he put it in these terms: “Der λόγος τῆς καταλλαγῆς, der für Paulus ein konstitutives Moment des Heilshandelns Gottes bildet, ist – wie wir sahen – in strenger Ausschliesslichkeit Gottes eigenes Wort: das Evangelium, in dem er selbst seine im Kreuzestod Jesu vollzogene Versöhnungstat wirksam offenbart hat und offenbart” (For Paul, λόγος τῆς καταλλαγῆς is the constitutive moment of God’s salvific work, as we saw, namely in strict exclusivity God’s own Word: in the gospel, in which he himself revealed and will reveal the full redemption effectuated in the death of Jesus).94

93 Cf. Otfried Hofius, “Neutestamentliche Exegese in systematisch-theologischer Verantwortung,” in Hofuis, Exegetische Studien. WUNT 223. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2008, 267–281, here 269: the principium verbi divini means “die Erkenntnis, dass in dem Menschenwort der neutestamentlichen Autoren ein qualitative anderes Wort bezeugt wird und mittles dieser Bezeugung selbst zur Sprache kommt” (the realization that in the human word of the New Testament authors, a qualitatively more important word is testified to and by means of this testimony expresses itself). 94  Otfried Hofius, “‘Gott hat unter uns aufgerichtet das Wort von der Versöhnung’ (2 Kor 5,19),” in Paulusstudien. WUNT 51. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 1989, 15–32, here 31.

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In sum, then, truth, logos and revelation must be correlated with the human impossibility to come to understand oneself adequately because of the ontological limit imposed by sin. No person can arrive by oneself at a proper self-understanding. Apart from the outside light of revelation, sin remains hidden and misunderstood.

2.8  Existential Hermeneutics Our final task is now to provide a succinct outline of an existential interpretation of the Pauline letters. What is existential interpretation as such and in relation to existentialist philosophy? What are its guiding principles and its main tasks? Existential Interpretation versus Existentialism, existential philosophy. It is important to spell out at this point that we are not attempting to revive existentialism as a philosophy and then bend it somehow to biblical narrative in general and the apostle Paul in particular. We are not interested per se in existentialism or existentialist philosophy95 and its main representatives such as Kierkegaard, Marcel, Heidegger, Sartre, Camus and others. We are also not trying to create some sort of Christian adaptation of existentialism via Bultmann or Fuchs, a new kind of onto-theology or existentialist theology.96 But we are taking some of the key ideas of existentialist thought and bring these ideas to bear on our interpretation of the apostle Paul. For this reason, I prefer to speak of existential hermeneutics or existential interpretation rather than existentialism.97 As a brief aside, it may be useful to pause and consider just how difficult it may be for a current interpreter of biblical texts to grasp the intent of existential hermeneutics, as the debate between Bultmann and Barth exemplifies. After a brief flourishing of existentialist thinking in biblical studies in the wake of Bultmann and Heidegger, especially in continental Europe 95  For a brief but excellent overview of existentialist philosophy see Klaus-M. Ko­ dalle, “Existenzphilosophie,” in RGG4 , vol.  2, 1814–1816; Barrett, Irrational Man. A Study in Existential Philosophy; Johannes B. Lotz, “Existenzphilosophie,” in Philosophisches Wörterbuch, edited by Walter Brugger. Freiburg/Basel/Wien: Herder 1976, 104–107. 96  David Brown, Continental Philosophy and Modern Theology. An Engagement. Oxford: Basil Blackwell 1987. This is a good general examination of philosophy and theology. The chapter on human nature discusses questions of phenomenology, theology and existentialism, cf. 74–100. 97  For a good orientation regarding these questions, cf. Christof Landmesser, “Hermeneutik und existentiale Interpretation,” in Bultmann Handbuch, 373–382.

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from about 1930 to 1960, new liberationist approaches took the place of existential hermeneutics. Ironically, however, every liberationist interpretation is de facto predicated on existential thinking. So what is at stake in existentialist hermeneutics? In this regard it is instructive to note just how much difficulty Karl Barth had with Rudolf Bultmann and the latter’s conviction that philosophical existentialist questions do in fact address the core questions that the biblical narratives want to address.98 Even though the two theologians could never understand each other and the hermeneutical reasons that undergirded their biblical interpretations, upon reading their correspondence, it seems to me that Barth did not adequately address the probing questions that were so crucial for Bultmann’s view of the biblical texts in view of human existence. Bultmann’s position was “dass es nämlich entscheidend darauf ankommt, klar zu machen, mit welchem Begriff von Wirklichkeit, von Sein und Geschehen wir in der Theologie eigentlich arbeiten… Auf eine ontologi­ sche Besinnung kommt es also an… so folgt daraus auch, dass sich die Theo­logie mit der Philosophie befasse, und zwar heute mit eben der Philosophie, die die ontologische Frage neu gestellt hat.”99 For Bultmann, the rationale behind existential hermeneutics was the conviction that such interpretation was the most appropriate to address the questions and issues of the modern person. “Als ein mir begegnendes Wort” (as the word that I encounter), says Bultmann, “kann ich das NT doch nur verstehen, wenn ich es als in meine Existenz gesprochenes verstehe” (I can understand the NT only when I understand it as being spoken into my existence). How­ ever, understanding is for him “glaubendes Verstehen (believing understanding)”100 and as such understanding is the work of the Holy Spirit. Barth’s answer to Bultmann was anything but ambiguous. He assures Bultmann that he is not an enemy of philosophy as such, but that he rejects every kind of “Absolutheitsanspruch” (absolute claims) be it that of a philosophy, epistemology or methodology.101 His reasons for rejecting exis98  Cf. Karl Barth, Karl Barth – Rudolf Bultmann. Briefwechsel 1911–1966. Ge­samt­ ausgabe V/1. Zurich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich, 2nd ed. 1994. 99 Barth, Karl Barth – Rudolf Bultmann. Briefwechsel 1911–1966, 168–169: “it is crucial to clarify with what concepts of reality, being and event theology works … it depends on an ontological reflection… and calls theology to deal with philosophy, the kind of philosophy that today has posed the question of ontology anew.” Bultmann thinks of course of Heidegger’s philosophy. 100 Barth, Karl Barth – Rudolf Bultmann. Briefwechsel 1911–1966, 173: “I can only understand the NT as a word that I encounter when it is spoken into my existence.” 101  Cf. Barth, Karl Barth – Rudolf Bultmann. Briefwechsel 1911–1966, 193.

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tential hermeneutics are as follows: “Sie wollten mir erklären, dass das, was Sie dem Neuen Testament mit dem Existentialismus antun, kein Messen an einem ihm fremden Kanon, keine Anlegung einer Zwangsjacke usw., sondern die sachgemässe Auslegung sei. Und eben das wird mir, wie ich auch darüber nachdenke, nicht einleuchten. Ich sehe in Ihrer Auslegung gerade das Textelement dauerned verdeckt, von dem ich meine, dass es nicht nur auch, sondern als erstes und entscheidendes ans Licht müsste.”102 Barth and Bultmann never seemed to have reached a mutual understanding of each other’s hermeneutical presuppositions. They did not meet on the hermeneutical circle. For Barth, Bultmann did not take the text itself as serious as Barth would have liked and believed that Bultmann forced the text into an existential straight jacket. And Bultmann, it seems, was puzzled by Barth’s unwillingness and lack of understanding that the ontological question was the one that opened up biblical texts in the very existence of the follower of Christ. Whatever side we may be on in this regard, it is nonetheless still a valid issue – perhaps today again more so than ever – to ask existential questions. Or, to say it even better: to ask the question of the truths the biblical texts want to communicate to the reader, not as mere information about a specific religious topic, but in terms of a personal grip that is transformative in one’s life. At any rate, for our purposes the main ideas that we take103 from existentialist hermeneutics are the following concepts: 102 Barth, Karl Barth – Rudolf Bultmann. Briefwechsel 1911–1966, 194: “you want to tell me that what you do to the New Testament with existentialism is not a measurement of a canon that is foreign to it, an imposition of a straight jacket etc. but the most objective exposition. Exactly that, as I reflect on it, does not make sense to me. In your interpretation I see that the text seems always covered up. I think that the text itself must not also but first and foremost be brought to light.” See also Thielicke, Glauben und Denken in der Neuzeit, 30–36, who criticizes Bultmann’s hermeneutic principles, most of all his “Vorverständnis” as limiting the power of the text to reach the interpreter in ways that are outside the preconditioned subjectivity of the interpreter. 103  I should also be clear on the ideas that I reject: 1. Heidegger’s insistence to banish God from any reflection of Being. “Daß die Frage nach dem Sein, die neu zu stellen Heideggers eigenster Auftrag war, nicht als die Frage nach Gott verstanden werden darf, hat Heidegger selber unzweideutig klargemacht” (Hans-Georg Gadamer, “Die religiöse Dimension,” in Gadamer, Neuere Philosophie, GW 3. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck) 1987, 308). I follow Emmanuel Levinas (God, Death and Time. Translated by Bettina Bergo. Stanford: Stanford University Press 2000, 160) when he says: “the inquiry carried out here also begins from a critique of onto-theology, but it seeks to think God without making being or beings intervene in the relation with God. It seeks to think God as a beyond-being.” 2. Heidegger’s (over)emphasis on Verfallenheit, Geworfensein and death. While ontological categories do determine human existence, in Paul they are resolved toward life, hope and love. 3. Kierkegaard’s (and perhaps Bultmann’s) overemphasis on the “absolutely decisive role” (Käsemann, Perspectives on Paul, 11) of

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1. Beginning with Kierkegaard, virtually all existentialist thinkers emphasised existence. This is not to say that reflection on existence was not part of the philosophical discourse before existential philosophy. In fact, the distinction between existence and essence goes back to the Greeks, and via Philo of Alexandria104 found its way into Christian thinking. In Greek and Jewish-Christian thought, however, the reflection on existence was embedded in the discussion on God’s essence (οὐσία) and existence (ὕπαρξις). Our emphasis will solely be on existence and what Paul has to say about our existence. For us, existence carries the Kierkegaardian sense of referring to the finite being of every person, characterized as it is by its contingency, concreteness, individuality, fragility and possibility.105 2. The emphasis on human existence is an emphasis on the individual human being. Such emphasis is not however for its own sake but aims at highlighting something else entirely, namley “Eigenständigkeit u[nd] Unableitbarkeit des konkreten Einzelmenschen” (uniqueness and irreducibility of the concrete human being).106 In other words, the emphasis falls on the concrete, contingent, interrupted and fragile form of life that characterizes every finite human existence.107 To think of human existence in these terms is not to glorify an unbound individualism, but rather to point out the structures within which each human life uncovers and discovers itself. Even though individual existence is the focal point, it is so only in that every person is idiosyncratic as an existential creature. Individualism in this sense means that every person must engage in his or her own thinking. No one else will or can do it. In Kierkegaard’s terms, that is to say that in every “existierender Denker”108 objective insights and conclusions are not abstracted from the thinking subject. In theory, in objectifying abthe individual. 4. Bultmann’s views on the insights and importance of the religionsgeschichtliche Schule, such as his conviction that Gnosis had a major influence on Paul. 5. Bultmann’s need to demythologize the Weltbild of the New Testament. Even Hans Jonas, who followed Heidegger to Marburg and attended Bultmann’s 1924 seminar together with Hannah Arendt, praises Bultmann retrospectively as his “Lehrer und Freund” and appreciates their conversations “von Philosoph zu Theologe, von Jude zu Christ, vor allem aber: von Freund zu Freund.” Still, Jonas critiques that Bultmann thought “dem ‘wissenschaftlichen Weltbild’ mehr Zugeständnisse machen zu müssen glaubte, als die Sache verlangte” (Hans Jonas, Wissenschaft als persönliches Erlebnis. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1988, 47, 72–75). 104  Cf. Peter Frick, Divine Providence in Philo of Alexandria, TSAJ 77. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 1999, 45–49. 105  Cf. Marcus Willaschek, “Existenz,” in RGG 4 vol.  2 , 1812. 106  Lotz, “Existenzphilosophie,” 104. 107  Cf. Marcus Willaschek, “Existenz,” in RGG 2, 1812. 108  Cf. Thielicke, Glauben und Denken in der Neuzeit, 598–600, on Kierkegaard’s understanding of the “existing thinker” versus the abstract thinker.

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stract thinking the subject can be replaced because any thinking subject must reach the same conclusion; it is not about the subject but the process by which a conclusion is reached. But in existential interpretation, the thinking subject is part of the epistemological and hermeneutical process that is always and only accessible to us as a person who is self-conscious of his or her existence. In sum, then, the emphasis on individual existence is the recognition that each person is made uniquely in the image of God and therefore possesses dignity, value, respect and the thinking ability to construct meaning. 3. The starting point for our hermeneutical understanding of Paul is that “the existential analytic of Dasein comes before any psychology or anthropology,”109 and we may add before any theology and any Pauline interpretation. The very first point of departure for understanding Paul are not his letters, nor his personality, nor any particular method of reading, nor any perspective, nor any hermeneutic nor anything else that may add a prejudice to unlocking what Paul intended to communicate. Being – as Dasein’s existence – precedes anything that we can bring to our existence. Dasein, life as such, has priority before anything else. This cannot be reversed. 4. Because of the priority of existence, the only neutral interpretation of Paul can be ontological-existential. Existential hermeneutics begins with the facticity of Dasein, our life, and only then proceeds to the examination of the structures of our lives. Put differently, existential hermeneutics does not first think of an approach (theological, philosophical, old or new or radical perspective, feminist, liberationist etc). and assesses what a specific approach may have to say to human existence. The only universal first point of departure, for every person interpreting Paul and the apostle himself, is existence. The question thus must be: what does existence tell us about what Paul is attempting to tell us. Concretely, existential interpretation is the dynamic between existence and text. Existence is the given, interpretation (hermeneutics) follows and must be correlated to that existence. It is not the case that we have Paul’s texts first and are called to interpret and understand them and existence is only tangential to the texts. Ontologically it is the reverse. Our existence interprets the texts to the extent that the interpreter tries to make intelligible what Paul did say in the texts and how his claims/sayings square with our Dasein. The hermeneutic circle is thus not a liner development from text to interpretation to understanding to application. It is, indeed, a circle, in which the starting point and the end point are existence. 109 Heidegger,

Being and Time, 71.

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5. As noted above, the attempt to find meaning for our lives is rooted in an a priori ontological structure of human Dasein. The path to ascertain meaning is the effort to interpret our lives vis-à-vis a meaningful existence. This is to say that all human beings engage de facto in an existential interpretation of their lives, irrespective of whether they do so knowingly or unknowingly. From a hermeneutical perspective this is significant for our interest in the thought of the apostle Paul. Given that human existence in its innate search for meaning is the common denominator between Paul and us contemporary Pauline interpreters, it follows that methodologically the task crystalizes for us in the existential analysis and understanding of our own existence vis-à-vis Paul. We take the questions from existentialist analysis of Dasein, but we listen to the apostle Paul for the answers to these questions. Existential Understanding. What then, finally, is existential hermeneutics or existential interpretation? In short, existential interpretation means “eine spezifisch daseinsanalytisch begründete Hermeneutik” (a specific hermeneutic founded on the analytic of Dasein) which interprets biblical texts not in view of “objektiver Richtigkeiten und Sachverhalte” (objective criteria and facts) but aims first and foremost at “Eröffnung existenzialer Wahrheit im Sinne eines neuen ‘eigentlichen’ Selbstverständnisses” (disclosing existential truth in the sense of a new ‘authentic’ self-understanding).110 The task and purpose of existential interpretation of biblical texts – the Pauline letters in our case – is Existenzerhellung.111 This “bringing to light of existence” entails specifically the bringing to light – into the truth, into the disclosedness of being – the conditio humana, in both its destructive and life-giving aspects. But it brings equally to light how the salfivic work of God in Christ offers a solution to the predicament of the human and cosmic plight. As Levinas says aptly, “philosophy is a bringing to light,” it is “an unveiling.”112 The light is the shining of the truth that Paul proclaims into the darkness of our being. Gadamer speaks of “‘Ereignis’ der Wahrheit” (the ‘event’ of truth), which unfolds in the “Spielraum von Entbergung und Verbergung” (in the space of un-hiding and hiding).113 110 

Hartmut Rosenau, “Existentiale Interpretation,” in RGG4 , vol.  2, 1810–1811. Manfred Oeming, “Existenzerhellung. Karl Jaspers als Ausleger des Alten Testaments,” in Petr Pokorný and Jan Roskovec (eds), Philosophical Hermeneutics and Biblical Exegesis. WUNT 153. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002, 190. 112  Emmanuel Levinas, Entre Nous. On Thinking-of-the-Other. New York: Columbia University Press 1998, 53. 113  Hans-Georg Gadamer, “Klassische und philosopische Hermeneutik,” in Wahr­ heit und Methode. Hermeneutik II, Ergänzungen, Register. GW 2. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 2nd ed, 1993, 92–117, here 104. 111 

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For Paul, the event of truth, the shining is the event of God’s unconditional love for all creation in his son, the man Jesus of Nazareth, who lived, was killed and resurrected as the Messiah for all humanity.

Existence Unbound

Chapter 3

The Human Predicament: Sin as Existential Category εἰ δὲ ὃ οὐ θέλω [ἐγὼ] τοῦτο ποιῶ, οὐκέτι ἐγὼ κατεργάζομαι αὐτὸ ἀλλ’ ἡ οἰκοῦσα ἐν ἐμοὶ ἁμαρτία. Rom. 7:20 ‫ָֽא ֹנִכ ֙י ָעִ֣שׂיִתי ֶ֔אֶרץ ְוָאָ֖דם ָעֶ֣ליה‬ Isaiah 45:12

The purpose of this chapter is to work out in detail the issue to which the Messiah/Christ is portrayed as the answer in the thinking of Paul. Our specific task is to demonstrate how sin can be understood as an ontological-existential category, in Heidegger’s terminology, an Existenzial (below 3.10). How can we coherently understand the correlation between our own disrupted human experience and the theological thinking of Paul regarding his conviction that Jesus the Christ is the answer? The key insight will focus on making intelligible that sin must be understood as a resolutely distinct entity from sins. Only when we have worked out an adequate understanding of what the problem, or plight, is in Paul – indeed with all of humanity – will we then be able to work out a categorically corresponding answer (see 5.1 below), or solution, to the problem.

3.1  The Art of the Question Albert Einstein apparently said: “If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask. For once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes.” Irrespective of whether Einstein said this or not, the key insight nonetheless stands. The quality of the question determines the quality of the answer. For me, this is one of the most decisive challenges in Pauline scholarship, methodologically perhaps even the most important question. It is a deceptively complex issue. For

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nearly three decades now I have wondered what the question is that Pauline scholars have attempted to answer. In order to arrive at the question, we must not only leave behind generalities, but we must be deliberately incisive, explicit and detailed. And finally, there must also be a personal reverberation; in our language, there must be an existential mirror that identifies the question as a question pertaining to real human beings in their everyday lives. At all costs, we must avoid trivial questions, for they only yield superficial answers. Any weakness or lack of clarity on what the question is will inevitably have as its consequence a weak and deficient answer to the problem of sin in terms of its christological and soteriological suggestions. In a sense, we can say that a lack of a clear understanding of sin in Paul is the Achilles’ heel of Pauline studies. If this aspect of his teaching remains vague, the entire superstructure will show shortcomings, as is the case no less in the new perspective as in the old perspective. In the metaphorical language of building our house (see above 1.2), our understanding of sin corresponds to the kind of land we find suitable for a house that will endure. The choice of land always precedes the actual building. Anyone who disregards the suitability of the ground and soil for the envisioned building will run into problems, the worst of which is that the whole edifice collapses. In the language of Jesus, it would be foolishness to build a house on sand (cf. Matt. 7:26–27). In our case, sandy soil resembles a deficient understanding of the question to which Paul responds, namely the question of sin vis-à-vis human being and the cosmos. The most appropriate test case for an ontological-existential hermeneutics of Paul is his understanding of sin. For here we encounter in Paul not merely a neutral question, a personal opinion or preferential theology or Jewish doctrine that may or may not be applicable to all of his congregations. Rather, when Paul discusses the topic of sin it becomes immediately obvious that he is speaking of a reality, an influence, a power that enslaves his own life, the lives of all Jews and Gentiles, and indeed, the lives of all human beings and even the entire cosmos. In other words, the attempt to understand what Paul is saying about the topic of sin apart from the concreteness of human existence cannot, arguably, bring to light an understanding that adequately illuminates our own existence in the context of the cosmos. When we study the Pauline letters regarding sin, we find two basic positions that Paul equally holds. The first is his view that sin is action-oriented and can be measured as acts of transgression against Torah and Jesus’ love commandment. Sins are the ethical missteps that are part of every

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human life. The second is his conviction that sin is being-oriented, namely that sin holds an inescapable influence over human nature. Sin characterizes the human condition. Sin has such power over us that its endpoint is death. Both positions are clearly discernible in the Pauline letters, conceptually as well as terminologically. The first position is typically expressed with the plural ἁμαρτίαι, the second position is always expressed with the singular ἁμαρτία.

3.2  The Human Predicament That the human predicament has something to do with Paul, indeed with the centre of his thought, is evident from the fact that Paul believes that the divine-human relation is somehow not what it ought to be. All of Israel’s history and religious practices have something to do with overcoming that divide. Without the brokenness of the divine-human relation, the need for the temple and the corresponding atonement of sins, as well as Torah instruction for daily living, would not really be needed, indeed be meaningless. Paul’s thinking, both as a Pharisee and as a Christian, is centred on the question of how that divine-human relationship can be restored. While the conception and terminology of what the plight is shows various nuances in Paul’s inherited Jewish tradition and in his own thinking, it is evident that one of the key characterizations of the plight is that it is a matter of sin. One primary indication of the human plight is Paul’s speaking of the wrath and judgement of God upon individuals and the people of Israel as a whole. In his very first letter, Paul gives us a kind of a first creed in 1 Thess. 9–10. In verse 10 he notes that God raised Jesus from the dead and that Jesus is the one τὸν ῥυόμενον ἡμᾶς ἐκ τῆς ὀργῆς τῆς ἐρχομένης (“who rescues us from the wrath that is coming”). The same theme of the coming divine wrath is still operative in Romans. In 1:18 Paul argues: ἀποκαλύπτεται γὰρ ὀργὴ θεοῦ ἀπ᾽ οὐρανοῦ ἐπὶ πᾶσαν ἀσέβειαν καὶ ἀδικίαν ἀνθρώπων τῶν τὴν ἀλήθειαν ἐν ἀδικίᾳ κατεχόντων (“for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of those who by their wickedness suppress the truth”). It is telling that here Paul not only uses the cipher ἐπὶ πᾶσαν ἀσέβειαν καὶ ἀδικίαν ἀνθρώπων to refer to human sins in general, but that he also connects these sins with those who “suppress the truth.” In a classic existential sense, every sin is at the same time a suppression of the truth, in its basic form it is a covering up of the ontological structure of Dasein. In addition, Paul also connects God’s wrath with

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God’s judgement1 on the eschatological day of wrath in Rom. 2:5: κατὰ δὲ τὴν σκληρότητά σου καὶ ἀμετανόητον καρδίαν θησαυρίζεις σεαυτῷ ὀργὴν ἐν ἡμέρᾳ ὀργῆς καὶ ἀποκαλύψεως δικαιοκρισίας τοῦ θεοῦ (“but by your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed”). The upshot of all of this is clear: there is an issue, indeed, a problem of such magnitude in the broken divine-human relation that it has inescapable consequences for every human being, namely God’s wrath and judgement. Every single person is implicated by it. It is, in short, the existential problem. In a sense all of Paul’s letters are the attempt to deal with or to address that problem in one of its existential manifestations. His writings wrestle with an articulation of the answer to the human dilemma while he attempts to do justice to his newly-found insights about the Messiah, the people of Israel and the Gentiles. Paul’s Dasein, as well as that of all Israel and Gentiles is in principle no different than our own existence. Like Paul, we too have a suspicion and live with the corroborating experiences that something negative is operative in ourselves and our created world. We too experience the great disruption of life. We need no theology, no philosophy, no psychology and indeed no religious conviction or ideological prompting of any kind to have our mind, body and soul opened to the reality that some things in our lives are not what they could and should be. These realities appear to us as phenomena (cf. Rom. 7:13), as experiences that are outside of our control. On occasion, we even experience emotional and physical torment, and we suffer because something with us and our world has gone terribly wrong. Worst, all of this ends in death, the final and universal conclusion to our lives. In light of our life experiences, we are confronted with a question, well put by Alexander Wedderburn: “what for instance, is the nature of this human predicament that it can supposedly be dealt with the death of one individual? And what is the nature of God who requires that it be dealt with in this way (if God does in fact require it)?”2 In this chapter we will seek to answer the first part, and in following chapters the second part of this double question. 1  For example, Paul gives us a summary of his thinking in 2 Cor. 5:10: “For all of us must appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive due recompense for actions done in the body, whether good or evil.” See also 1 Thess. 5:9; Rom. 2:2–3; 5:16–17. 2  Alexander J. M. Wedderburn, The Death of Jesus. Some Reflections on Jesus-Traditions and Paul. WUNT 299. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2013, X.

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3.3  In the Beginning According to the biblical narrative, the human – and cosmic (cf. Rom. 8:19– 23) – predicament is not part of God’s original creation but crept in as a consequence of the first couple’s step toward inauthentic existence. About the beginning of creation (Gen. 1:1, cf. Isa. 45:12) we read: ‫ְּבֵראִ֖שׁית ָּב ָ֣רא ֱאלִֹ֑הים‬ ‫ֵ֥את ַהָשַּׁ֖מִים ְוֵ֥את ָהָֽא ֶרץ׃‬. In the language of the Septuagint: ἐν ἀρχῇ ἐποίησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν). God pronounced that each day was good (Gen. 1:10, 12, 18, 21, 25) and following the creation of the human being “God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good” (Gen. 1:31). Both creation narratives in Genesis see the pinnacle of creation in the creation of the human being, man and woman. “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:27). And more specifically, “Then the man said, ‘This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Woman, for out of Man this one was taken.’ Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh” (Gen. 2:23–24). The climax of the second creation narrative is Gen. 2:25: “And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.” One of Paul’s fundamental Pharisaic convictions was that God created the world (cf. Rom. 1:20, 8:19–23) and we can assume that Paul knew the creation narrative as recorded in the Septuagint and passed on in Jewish oral tradition. Paul believed that God created the world. But whether he believed, like his contemporary Philo of Alexandria, that God employed the λόγος and divine powers in the work of creation and whether he would agree with the later opening of the Fourth Gospel, ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος (John 1:1), we simply do not know. Perhaps there is an allusion in Col. 1:15–16. We also do not know what Paul thought of Gen. 2:25 “And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.” For our purposes, the crucial significance is in the nudity of the first human beings. In the previous chapter (section 2.4) we discussed Heidegger’s understanding of truth as that of un-covering, un-concealing, dis-closing, unveiling and so on. To repeat, what is dis-closed are the ontological-existential structures of our being, structures that are the boundaries for every existence. In the metaphoric language of the creation narrative the first man and woman were nude. Their nudity is a sign of their natural and nor-

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mal state of un-hiddenness, their un-coveredness.3 That is, as nude persons they could not further be nuded, further be un-covered. Their primal state was already one of un-coveredness, there was nothing that could still be removed from either the nude man or the nude woman. To state all of this in positive terms: their nudity was the original state of completeness, of truth. Only as nude, as un-covered human beings were they in the state of living according to their authentic constitution. And in their state of nudity, Adam and Eve could not even perceive their nudity as nudity; in fact, it was the reverse. The nudity of the man and the woman cannot simply be reduced to their nakedness, their “clotheslessness,” but is an indication of the manner of their whole and free being. Their being nude was the normal and only state of completeness and wholeness in truth. They could not perceive that they were lacking clothes – this becomes an issue only after the fall. To put it in the language of existential philosophy: only as nude persons did they live a life of authentic existence because they lived fully in the truth. Nudity was the existential structure (Existenzial) that was identical with the authenticity of existence. In this state of nudity, they did not have to cover any body part because there was “nothing to hide.” Everything was good, wholesome and complete. There was no shame because there was no gaze.4 The fall of Adam and Eve has four consequences: first, Adam and Eve are conscious of their nudity and cover it up. Heidegger notes that covering up is tantamount to un-truth (Unwahrheit) and the corresponding act of covering up.5 Second, they hide from Yahweh, the source of creation and life. Third, Adam seeks to cover himself by blaming Eve, and fourth, the consequence of their transgression is the wrath and punishment of God,6 including finiteness and death. Decisive for our purposes is the insight that the creation narrative describes a time, at least potentially, when existence in the mode of truth, represented in nudity, was a possibility. In other words, at the very begin3  Cf. Giorgio Agamben, Nudities. Translated by David Kishik and Stefan Pedatella. Stanford: Stanford University Press 2011. He comments, 63, that “human nature is always already constituted as naked.” 4 Cf. James A. Diamond, Jewish Theology Unbound, Oxford: Oxford University Press 2018, 126. 5  Cf. Martin Heidegger, “Das Wesen der Wahrheit,” in Heidegger, Wegmarken. GA 9. Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann 1976, 177–202. He speaks specifically of “die Unwahrheit als die Verbergung,” 193. See also Heidegger’s intriguing interpretation of Plato’s allegory of the cave as the foundation for understanding the Greek notion of truth, “Platons Lehre von der Wahrheit,” in Heidegger, Wegmarken, 203–238. 6  Cf. Gottfried Quell, “ἁμαρτάνω, ἁμάρτημα, ἁμαρτία,” in ThWNT 1, 283.

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ning of creation, within the unbroken divine-human and cosmic relations, God’s grand plan was one of authentic, truthful living. Quell’s conclusion is noteworthy: the creation narrative, even though mythological displays “eine in der Struktur des Menschen begründete Notwendigkeit” (a necessity that is grounded in the structure of human beings) which calls for an “Anerkennung der Allgemeingültigkeit des in dieser Sage vorgeführten Phänomens” (a recognition of the universality of the phenomenon that appears in this saga).7 While this was not his intention, Quell employed existential ideas and terminology to express the basic ideas in the Adam and Eve story that are crucial for our objectives.

3.4  The Great Disruption Just as Paul took for granted the narrative account of creation and worked with it as a fundamental conviction, so likewise, he fully assumed the truth of the fall of humanity as recorded in Genesis 3. That this is indeed the case can be seen in his own deliberation in Rom. 5:12–14: “Therefore, just as sin (ἡ ἁμαρτία) came into the world through one man, and death came through (καὶ διὰ τῆς ἁμαρτίας ὁ θάνατος) sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned… Yet death exercised dominion from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam (τῆς παραβάσεως Ἀδάμ), who is a type of the one who was to come.” It is interesting in this context that Paul did not only hold Adam responsible for both sin and death, but that he also explicitly pronounced that Adam’s singular act had as a consequence that the many were made sinners. In Paul’s own words: “For just as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners (ὥσπερ γὰρ διὰ τῆς παρακοῆς τοῦ ἑνὸς ἀνθρώπου ἁμαρτωλοὶ κατεστάθησαν οἱ πολλοί), so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous” (Rom. 5:19). Within only a few verses Paul can identify Adam’s disobedience as transgression and thereby by implication as an act. But, nonetheless, this singular act brought about a universal consequence, namely sin (ἁμαρτία in the singular) and as a result of sin, also inescapably death. Since humanity follows after Adam, Paul asserts, as a result of Adam’s act, humanity as a whole has become entangled in sin and people have themselves become sinners. Within these verses we thus can identify the Pauline conception regarding sin. On the one hand, Adam’s disobedience was an act, and fol7 

Quell, “ἁμαρτάνω, ἁμάρτημα, ἁμαρτία,” in ThWNT 1, 287.

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lowing Adam all people have also sinned (Rom. 5:12), that is, have committed acts of sin. In this regard, Paul is probably thinking along the lines of the later Rabbinic scheme of the good and evil inclination. On the other hand, and arguably, this is the new element in Paul’s thought that goes beyond his Pharisaic thinking, is the idea that sin is more than just an act of transgression or disobedience against Torah. Sin, Paul seems to insist, is not just a deed but a power that enslaves people. Indeed, as he explicitly said, people are sinners (Rom. 5:19). What this distinction between sin (as a mode of being) and sins (as acts) means within the larger matrix of Pauline theology we will work out in the following sections and other chapters. For now, the fundamental insight in understanding Paul is his conviction that God’s good creation was somehow derailed by an act of the first human being, Adam, and that this singular act of disobedience has far reaching consequences for the divine-human relation because now all people are sinners. Because of Adam, Paul’s basic premise goes, life has been severely disrupted from its original purpose and all people and the cosmos itself are inevitably ensnared in this unsettling power of sin.

3.5  Sin and Sins in Biblical and Post-Biblical Judaism Given his Pharisaic background, his uncompromising commitment to Torah observance and his use of the Septuagint as his biblical text, it is not surprizing that Paul himself is caught up in the hermeneutical quest to make comprehensible the dynamic between sin and sins. We will briefly look at various conceptualizations of sin in the Hebrew Bible, Septuagint and post-biblical Judaism. Sin/Sins in the Hebrew Bible.8 According to Gottfried Quell, “der Begriff der Sünde finded im AT einen vielseitigen sprachlichen Ausdruck, dessen Mannigfaltikeit weder in LXX… noch in der deutschen Übersetzung ‘Sünde’ ausreichend … zur Geltung kommt” (the concept of sin has a broad linguistic expression in the Old Testament, such that this multiplicity does not sufficiently represent either the LXX… nor the German trans-

8  Cf. Joseph Lam, Patterns of Sin in the Hebrew Bible. Metaphor, Culture, and the Making of a Religious Concept. New York: Oxford University Press 2016. See also Rolf Knierim, Die Hauptbegriffe für Sünde im Alten Testament. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlags-Haus Mohn, 2nd ed. 1967. See also E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism. Philadelphia: Fortress Press 1985, 174–211, on “Sinners.”

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lation).9 The reason why both the Septuagint, German, English and most other languages struggle with a conceptually nuanced translation has to do with the fact that there are four dominant roots that constitute the basic and variegated understanding of sin in the Hebrew Bible. These are ‫הטא‬,10 ‫פשׁע‬, ‫ עוה‬and ‫שׁגה‬. These roots and their cognate forms “represent between them almost the whole range of Heb. words for guilt and sin.”11 ‫ הטא‬means “lapse (Verfehlung)” and developed with its cognates into the main terminology for “sin.”12 ‫ פשׁע‬means “rebellion,”13 ‫ עוה‬has the meaning and connotation of “guilt, iniquity”14 while ‫ שׁגה‬has the basic meaning of “to err, make a mistake, go astray.”15 It is rather curious that all four of these Hebrew roots are absent from the creation narrative of the Yahwist in Genesis 3, the so-called fall of humanity. For it is here in this mythological account that the origin, content and consequence of sin are paradigmatically described. In the various genres of the Hebrew Bible, sin may be characterized for Israel “both as a falling away from a relationship of faithfulness towards God and also disobedience to the commandments and the law.”16 The first is typically an infraction of God’s covenant (cf. Ex. 24:7, Deut. 4:13). Paradigmatic are verses like Deut. 7:9: “know, therefore, that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who maintains covenant loyalty with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations.” The second a violation of God’s word and command (cf. Is. 64:5–9). By way of illustration, to understand the dynamic of sin in ancient Israel, we can draw on Ps. 51 as a good example. 51:3: 51:4 51:5

Have mercy upon me, O God, as befits Your faithfulness; in keeping with Your abundant compassion, blot out my transgressions (‫)פשׁע‬. Wash me thoroughly of my iniquity (‫)עוה‬ and purify me of my sin (‫;)הטא‬ for I recognize my transgression (‫)פשׁע‬ and am ever conscious of my sin (‫)הטא‬.

Quell, “ἁμαρτάνω, ἁμάρτημα, ἁμαρτία,” in ThWNT 1, 267–268. Knierim, “‫ הטא‬ḥṭ’ sich verfehlen’,” in ThHwbAT vol.  1, 541–549. Knierim notes, 546, that the root ‫“ הטא‬ist der Hauptbegriff in der weitverzweigten atl. Termino­ logie für ‘Sünde’.” 11  Walther Günther, “ἁμαρτία” in NIDNTTh 3, 577. 12 Cf. Quell, “ἁμαρτάνω, ἁμάρτημα, ἁμαρτία,” in ThWNT 1, 270. ‫ הטא‬occurs 233 times in verbal form and 289 as noun. 13  In verbal form the root occurs 41 times and in nominal form 92 times. 14  In verbal form the root occurs 6 times and in nominal form 227 times. 15  In verbal form the root occurs 19 times and in nominal form 19 times. Cf. Job 14:16–17 where three of the roots are used all in one context. 16  Günther, “ἁμαρτία” in NIDNTTh 3, 578. 9 

10 Rolf

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Against You alone I have sinned (‫)הטא‬, and done what is evil in Your sight; so You are just in Your sentence, and right in Your judgement. Indeed I was born with iniquity (‫;)עוה‬ with sin (‫ )הטא‬my mother conceived me (JPS 1985)

Here in Psalm 51, we find the terms ‫פשׁע‬, ‫ הטא‬and ‫ עוה‬all in the context of a discussion of sin. In verse 7 the psalmist seems to suggest that there is a connection between birth and being conceived in sin, or as the NRSV translates “a sinner when my mother conceived me (Ps. 51:5; cf. Job 25:4).” This is not to say that the psalmist thought of sin in terms of later (Christian) teaching, but it is noteworthy that here we have a link between sin as an act and possibly as a mode of being. Even Rashi’s (much later) commentary on the verse suggest this much: “Behold, with iniquity I was formed: Now how could I not sin when the main part of my creation was through coitus, the source of many iniquities? Another explanation: The main part of my creation is from a male and a female, both of whom are full of iniquity. There are many midrashim to this verse, but they do not fit the context of the psalm.”17 When Rashi wonders why “with iniquity I was formed [and thus] how could I not sin?” he thinks in the right direction; he seems to imply some dynamic between a state of being and an act that result from that state of being. In a similar train of thought, the universality of sin is suggested by verses such as Gen. 6:5 “The LORD saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually” and Gen. 8:21 “the LORD said in his heart, ‘I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth’.” Even the all-wise King Solomon asks Yahweh in his prayer for mercy for his people Israel when they “sin against you – for there is no one who does not sin” (1 Kings 8:46). What we can take away from our brief discussion of sin/s in the biblical narrative is the conviction that human beings have a negative propensity, as the rabbis later said, an evil inclination,18 and are thus liable to commit acts of sin, iniquity, transgression and so on. The notion of sin as a human condition was at best hinted at. Sin/Sins in the Septuagint. In the LXX the term ἁμαρτία occurs 542 times, 300 times in the singular and 242 times in the plural. The four Hebrew roots ‫אטה‬, ‫פשׁע‬, ‫ עוה‬and ‫ שׁגה‬are rendered in the LXX primarily with 17 

Online text: habad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/16272#showrashi=true. E. Urbach, The Sages. Their Concepts and Beliefs. Translated by Israel Abrahams. Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1987, 472. 18  Ephraim

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the term ἁμαρτία (542 times) and secondarily with the terms ἀδικία (227 times) and ἀνομία (228 times).19 As in the Hebrew Bible, in the Septuagint, the singular sin (ἁμαρτία), the most frequent translation of ‫הטא‬, is very often used as a synonym for an act of sin, expressed by the terms ἀνομία or ἀσέβεια. For example, Ps. 37:19 LXX: ὅτι τὴν ἀνομίαν μου ἐγὼ ἀναγγελῶ καὶ μεριμνήσω ὑπὲρ τῆς ἁμαρτίας μου (= Ps. 38:18 “I confess my iniquity; I am sorry for my sin”).20 In a careful study, Stephen Westerholm has examined how Paul’s “anthropological pessimism,” relates to “its Jewish context.”21 While Westerholm’s study is not about sin as such, there are overlaps, nonetheless. He sees his study as a “rapid overview,” that explores “whether the distinctions commonly proposed between Pauline anthropology and that of Judaism are warranted by the literature of the period.”22 After surveying Paul, Westerholm examined over two dozen texts from the Jewish-Hellenistic period (ca. 200 BCE to 200 CE) including Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael and Qumran. He concludes “that Paul’s anthropology, in corresponding to his ‘soteriology,’ is a good deal more ‘negative’ than the anthropology typical among his contemporary Jews.”23 Moreover, “an unexpected (and perhaps counter-intuitive) result of our survey is that there appears to be no direct relationship in the texts between the activity of demonic forces and human moral capacities.”24 What do the above findings mean for Paul? The textual nuances and conceptual differences suggest that there is a discontinuity regarding the anthropological pessimism between Paul and his Jewish contemporaries. At the heart of the discrepancy lies the absence of (the later Christian notion of) original sin in the Judaism(s) of Paul’s time. The various Jewish texts examined by Westerholm do not suggest the extreme pessimism that 19  Knierim, “‫ הטא‬ḥṭ’ sich verfehlen’,” in ThHwbAT vol.  1, 547: “Der Tatbestand in LXX ist insofern aufschlussreich, als etwa 26 hebr. Ausdrücke für ‘Sünde’ mit nur 6 gr. Begriffen wiedergegeben sind, was zweifellos auf eine starke Thematisierung und Theoretisierung des atl. Sündenverständnisses im gr. Sprachraum hinweist.” 20  Cf. Ps. 31:5. 21  Cf. Stephen Westerholm, “Paul’s Anthropological ‘Pessimism’ in its Jewish Context,” in Law and Ethics, 51–84. See also E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism. Philadelphia: Fortress Press 1985, the chapter on “Sinners,” and his entry “Sin, Sinners (NT),” in ABD 6, 40–47. 22  Westerholm, “Paul’s Anthropological ‘Pessimism’ in its Jewish Context,” 54. For a good analysis see also W. D. Davis, “From Tyranny to Liberation: The Pauline Experience of Alienation and Reconciliation,” in Jewish and Pauline Studies, Philadelphia: Fortress Press 1984, 189–224. 23  Westerholm, “Paul’s Anthropological ‘Pessimism’ in its Jewish Context,” 80. 24  Westerholm, “Paul’s Anthropological ‘Pessimism’ in its Jewish Context,” 81.

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emerged in Paul. For Jews, though they acknowledged that Adam’s act of transgression has impacted human moral agency, the will and capability to do good is fully intact. 2 Baruch says it in these words: “although Adam sinned first and has brought death upon all who were not in his own time… [still] Adam is, therefore, not the cause, except only for himself, but each of us has become our own Adam.” In vintage Pelagian language, the author of 2 Baruch affirms, like Paul, that Adam brought sin and death to all humanity. Nonetheless, we are still “our own Adam” and therefore morally responsible for our actions. The idea of sin being an enslaving power is therefore absent from Jewish thinking. In our attempt to work out a framework for understanding Paul, we must keep in mind then that the answer Paul articulates as the answer to the human plight is different from the answer that Judaism has provided to the same issue. Different plights require different corresponding solutions. It must be emphasized that Paul’s plight (sin as power and act) required the solution of overcoming the power of sin and death (in Christ’s death and resurrection). This is vastly distinct from Judaism’s plight (human moral agency has been corrupted) and the viable solution offered (atonement within covenant and Torah).

3.6  Sins in Paul Paul himself is somewhat responsible for a terminological confusion and imprecision regarding the differentiation between sins and sin – a matter that has far-reaching consequences for understanding both Paul himself and the Christian tradition in its entirety. In the authentic Pauline letters, in the 59 occurrences of ἁμαρτία25 Paul employs the plural only seven times. The typical context for his views on sin as an act includes reference to Jesus’ life and death and the corresponding view that the resurrected Messiah has something to do with the pardon of human sins. The perception that sin is a misdeed, transgression, act of lawlessness, ethical failure etc. is also expressed by Paul with terms such as παράπτωμα, ἀκαθαρσία and ἀνομία. To begin with, in Rom. 5:8 Paul says that Christ died for us (Χριστὸς ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν ἀπέθανεν) and in Gal. 1:4 he specifies that Jesus “gave himself for our sins” (1:3 κυρίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ … 1:4 τοῦ δόντος ἑαυτὸν ὑπὲρ τῶν

25  In all of the New Testament the term ἁμαρτία occurs 173 times, 96 times in the singular and 77 times in the plural.

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ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν). Here Paul links together Jesus’ death with human sins.26 This same thought is reiterated in 1 Cor. 15:3, an early pre-Pauline Christian tradition that Paul passes on (παρέδωκα γὰρ ὑμῖν ἐν πρώτοις, ὃ καὶ παρέλαβον), namely that the Messiah died for our sins (ὅτι Χριστὸς ἀπέθανεν ὑπὲρ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν); but now Paul adds that this death for sins is according to the scriptures of Judaism (κατὰ τὰς γραφὰς). In 1 Cor. 15:17, Paul goes one important step further by linking Jesus’ death inseparably with his resurrection and the implied forgiveness of sins (εἰ δὲ Χριστὸς οὐκ ἐγήγερται, ματαία ἡ πίστις ὑμῶν, ἔτι ἐστὲ ἐν ταῖς ἁμαρτίαις ὑμῶν). Unless the Messiah has been raised from the dead, faith in God is futile and human beings are still left with their sins. The overcoming of sins is part of God’s covenant with his people Israel. In Rom. 11:27 Paul speaks, citing Isa. 27:9 and 59:20 LXX, of the forgiveness of sins as a sign of the covenant “And this is my covenant with them, when I take away their sins” (καὶ αὕτη αὐτοῖς ἡ παρ᾽ ἐμοῦ διαθήκη, ὅταν ἀφέλωμαι τὰς ἁμαρτίας αὐτῶν). The upshot of Paul’s view on the question of sins may be summarized in these terms: The sins of Israel 27 and the Gentiles are deeds of such magnitude that if they were not forgiven, they would bring about the wrath of God (1 Thess. 1:10; Rom. 1:18, 2:5) and death. Paul’s traditional understanding and language regarding sin as acts has to do with the enduring hermeneutical process to align his Pharisaic background and Torah-heritage with a re-conception of the questions of sin and sins, salvation and the role of the Messiah. That he was not alone in trying to reconfigure these questions, but that most of the early Christian thinkers were involved in situating the Messiah within the new matrix of faith is indicative in the pre-Pauline formulas, such as 1 Cor. 15:3 and Rom. 5:8. In these formulas, a primary purpose of the Messiah’s appearance had to do with addressing human sins (plural). In that sense, the first Christians were closer to Judaism than to the emerging Messiah-friendly groups within Judaism that were later known as Christian.

26  In Rom. 7:5 Paul further correlates sins as being provoked by Torah and by being characterized as sins of passion (τὰ παθήματα τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν τὰ διὰ τοῦ νόμου ἐνηργεῖτο ἐν τοῖς μέλεσιν ἡμῶν) and thus ultimately to bring about death (εἰς τὸ καρποφορῆσαι τῷ θανάτῳ). 27  On sins (plural) and Israel, cf. 1 Thess. 2:16, Rom. 4:7 (cf. Ps. 31:1 LXX), 11:27 (cf. Isa. 27:9)

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3.7  Sin in Paul In the vast majority of occurrences when Paul speaks of sin, he employs – perhaps quite surprisingly – the singular form ἁμαρτία (52 out of 59 occurrences, or ca. 88 percent).28 This terminological preference is significant because it points to Paul’s deeper conceptual framework of what he thinks of sin, namely his pushing past the traditional position of sin being a moral act of wrongdoing. The following is a listing of how Paul speaks of sin in various contexts in his letters. There is no need to address exegetical issues and details; Paul’s main ideas are evident and his terminology more than adequate to suggest what he thought about the issue of sin. Under Sin. In three instances, Paul employs the expression ὑφ᾿ ἁμαρτίαν. In Rom. 3:9 the apostle says: τί οὖν; προεχόμεθα; οὐ πάντως· προῃτιασάμεθα γὰρ Ἰουδαίους τε καὶ Ἕλληνας πάντας ὑφ᾽ ἁμαρτίαν εἶναι (“What then? Are we any better off? No, not at all, for we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under the power of sin”). Here he pronounces that Jews and Greeks are both under (the power of) sin. In other words, in Paul’s worldview “Jew and Greek” correspond to all humanity. While only Jews are “under Torah” (Rom. 6:15 ὑπὸ νόμον), all humanity is “under sin” (ὑφ᾽ ἁμαρτίαν). In Rom. 7:14 he singles himself out and says explicitly that he is “under sin” (ἐγὼ δὲ σάρκινός εἰμι πεπραμένος ὑπὸ τὴν ἁμαρτίαν). Similarly, in Gal. 3:22 Paul comments: ἀλλὰ συνέκλεισεν ἡ γραφὴ τὰ πάντα ὑπὸ ἁμαρτίαν, ἵνα ἡ ἐπαγγελία ἐκ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ δοθῇ τοῖς πιστεύουσιν (“but the scripture has imprisoned all things under the power of sin, so that what was promised through the faith of Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe”). Here the apostle argues hermeneutically by referring to the authority of scripture, namely to Torah, and claims that it consigned “all things” under (the power of) sin. This means that Paul does not present his view as his own view, but a position that he derived from nothing less than the scriptures of Israel, and hence ultimately from the God of Israel. In contrast to Rom. 3:9, where all humanity was under the power of sin, here Paul expands his view and says more generally “all things” (τὰ πάντα), presumably the cosmos as well. This fits well with what he says elsewhere about the law of sin. The Indwelling of Sin. In a cluster of three verses Paul speaks of sin as “indwelling.” In Rom. 7:17 Paul describes sin as something indwelling in 28  The plight, for Paul, described in the cipher ἁμαρτία, sin, occurs 59 times in the authentic Pauline letters. Terms that signify the solution to the plight are as follows: the word δικαιοσύνη occurs 50 times, the term σωτηρία occurs 14 times, the word πίστις occurs 91 times and the word χάρις occurs 66 times.

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him (ἡ οἰκοῦσα ἐν ἐμοὶ ἁμαρτία) and repeats the same thought in 7:20: εἰ δὲ ὃ οὐ θέλω [ἐγὼ] τοῦτο ποιῶ, οὐκέτι ἐγὼ κατεργάζομαι αὐτὸ ἀλλ’ ἡ οἰκοῦσα ἐν ἐμοὶ ἁμαρτία “now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it but sin that dwells within me.”29 These two instances of referring to “indwelling” are given more content in the verse between them. In Rom. 7:18 Paul specifies that οἶδα γὰρ ὅτι οὐκ οἰκεῖ ἐν ἐμοί, τοῦτ’ ἔστιν ἐν τῇ σαρκί μου, ἀγα­ θόν “For I know that the good does not dwell within me, that is, in my flesh.” Paul’s idea of sin as indwelling has decisive implications for our overarching understanding of hamartiology. It is apparent that Paul thinks of ἡ οἰκοῦσα ἐν ἐμοὶ ἁμαρτία as something that permeates his whole being. For this reason, he says τοῦτ’ ἔστιν ἐν τῇ σαρκί μου; here we must understand the reference to ἐν τῇ σαρκί μου not as being limited to his physical flesh but to his entire person. The expression ἡ οἰκοῦσα refers to something that is “in” Paul, that “dwells” in him; it is something that is in his being, something that has a hold of his entire personhood. As a negative indwelling power, ἁμαρτία can potentially corrupt every aspect of the human being, body, mind and soul. That sin is effectively a negative power can be deduced from Paul’s cry that “I know that the good does not dwell within me.” In other words, the apostle juxtaposes the absence of good with the presence of indwelling sin. Moreover, when Paul says that “if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it but sin that dwells within me.” Though it may seem that Paul is merely seeking an excuse for his moral weakness, it is in fact much more serious. He is admitting to a facticity that he had mentioned before in Romans, namely that sin is an enslaving power, and as such a power over which he has very little control. Enslaved to Sin. Paul also uses the idea of enslavement when he speaks of sin. In Rom. 5:21 he notes that “sin enslaved (or: ruled) in death” (ἐβα­ σίλευσεν ἡ ἁμαρτία ἐν τῷ θανάτῳ) and in Rom. 6:17 he says of the Romans that previously they were “slaves of sin” (ὅτι ἦτε δοῦλοι τῆς ἁμαρτίας) and again repeats the same statement in Rom. 6:20. Similary, in Rom. 7:23 we find the interesting reference to αἰχμαλωτίζοντά με ἐν τῷ νόμῳ τῆς ἁμαρτίας (making me captive to the law of sin). Here Paul speaks of being captive to the law of sin. Such language likewise suggests that Paul envisions sin as an external force taking control over one’s path and destiny. The very notion of slavery, still much practiced during Paul’s life, is such that a foreign mas29 

The Pauline antidote to the indwelling of the power of sin is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Cf. 1 Cor. 3:16 (τὸ πνεῦμα τοῦ θεοῦ οἰκεῖ ἐν ὑμῖν) and Rom. 8:9, 11 (πνεῦμα θεοῦ οἰκεῖ ἐν ὑμῖν).

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ter exercises all the control over the subjects. In the Pauline language of sin being an enslaving power, sin is the master and human beings are the subjects. Being a Sinner. In Rom 5:8 Paul says that God demonstrated his love “for us” in that the Messiah died for us (συνίστησιν δὲ τὴν ἑαυτοῦ ἀγάπην εἰς ἡμᾶς ὁ θεός, … Χριστὸς ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν ἀπέθανεν) “while we were sinners (ἔτι ἁμαρτωλῶν ὄντων ἡμῶν).” This last statement has a transparent ontological ring to it, both in terms of language itself and conceptual underpinning. The adverbial participle phrase ὄντων ἡμῶν within the genitive absolute establishes the independence of Paul’s idea that human beings were sinners already before the coming of the Messiah, but that the death and resurrection of the Messiah is somehow tied to the solution of that “being sinner.” Similarly, in his typological interpretation of Adam, Paul asserts in Rom. 5:19 that because of Adam’s disobedience “many were made sinners” (ἁμαρτωλοὶ κατεστάθησαν οἱ πολλοί). The point here is that Paul “dates” human sinfulness back to Adam’s initial sin. Stated differently, the reality of sin was co-incidental with the beginning of all creation. The Law of Sin. On the basis that the power of sin was potentially operative since the first human beings, it is not surprising that in Rom. 7:23 Paul speaks of seeing, that is to say experiencing, a law at work in his body, his members (βλέπω δὲ ἕτερον νόμον ἐν τοῖς μέλεσίν μου). In this context he is certainly not speaking of law (νόμος) in the sense of Torah, but in the sense of a law that is an overpowering rule. This is evident in his further explication that he is captivated by “the law of sin that is in his members” (ἐν τῷ νόμῳ τῆς ἁμαρτίας τῷ ὄντι ἐν τοῖς μέλεσίν μου). Paul is precisely not pointing to an act of sin he committed in his body, but he speaks of the law of sin (singular)! The law of sin, for Paul, is a reference to the regularity and consistency with which he, and by extension all humanity, experiences sin as a drive, a power, a dominion, an enslavement, an inescapable law. Even though Paul does not use the language of philosophy, what he describes in ordinary language is the ontological structure of human reality. Human existence cannot escape its dark underside and be free from that law that disrupts life at a deep level. Moreover, when he uses the term law, he is also not referring merely to the fact that human beings sometimes commit acts of sin, but he is rather pointing to the fact that they are under this inescapable, permanent and destructive disposition and control (lit. imprisoned; αἰχμαλωτίζοντά), hence the power of the law of sin. The Consequence of Sin. The consequence of sin as death is one of the most consistently held Pauline views on sin (cf. Rom. 5:12. 15, 21; 6:21, 23;

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7:9–10; 1 Cor. 15:56).30 Paul has no illusions as to the endpoint of sin. The end of sin in its cosmic universalism is death. In Rom. 5:12 he remarks: “just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned” (διὰ τοῦτο ὥσπερ δι᾽ ἑνὸς ἀνθρώπου ἡ ἁμαρτία εἰς τὸν κόσμον εἰσῆλθεν καὶ διὰ τῆς ἁμαρτίας ὁ θάνατος, καὶ οὕτως εἰς πάντας ἀνθρώπους ὁ θάνατος διῆλθεν, ἐφ᾽ ᾧ πάντες ἥμαρτον). Death, in existential terminology, is nothing other but non-life, non-existence, non-being. Elsewhere in Romans, 6:23, Paul specifies once more that the outcome of sin, the wages as he says, is death (τὰ γὰρ ὀψώνια τῆς ἁμαρτίας θάνατος). Even if tentatively, Paul speaks plainly of the universal phenomenon (from φαινομένον, literally the appearing)31 that all humanity and the entire cosmos (cf. Rom. 8:18–23) are under an inescapable universal, cosmic reality, a life-destructive power that ultimately leads to death. Paul simply assumes that death is not a good thing, but he does not elaborate on what he means by death or why it is a problem for human beings. By default, it is the opposite of life. But does death have an ontological status equal to that of life, or is it, in the Aristotelian sense, a privation, the most serious of all privations? In existential terminology, the existential-ontological reality of life disrupted and enslaved by the power of sin, manifests itself in the existentiell-ontic reality of every human being.32 The law of sin exists (ἐν τῷ νόμῳ τῆς ἁμαρτίας τῷ ὄντι); Paul ascribes it some sort of existence (τῷ ὄντι), even though he restricts it in this context to “the members,” the human body. In Rom. 8:2 Paul speaks of the law of sin and death in the same breath: ὁ γὰρ νόμος τοῦ πνεύματος τῆς ζωῆς ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ ἠλευθέρωσέν σε ἀπὸ τοῦ νόμου τῆς ἁμαρτίας καὶ τοῦ θανάτου. The meaning of νόμος in this context – as we also saw above in Rom. 7:23 – is certainly not a reference to Torah. The use of νόμος suggests rather that Paul wanted to emphasize the regularity of an inevitable domination that one experiences in view of sin and death. In that sense, νόμος is tantamount with the notion of control or power. Moreover, there is a strong parallel in Paul’s language between Rom. 6:18, 22 (ἐλευθερωθέντες ἀπὸ τῆς ἁμαρτίας) and Rom. 8:2 (ἠλευθέρωσέν σε ἀπὸ τοῦ νόμου τῆς ἁμαρτίας καὶ τοῦ θανάτου). In all in30 

Cf. James D. G. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company 1998, 124–126. 31  In Rom. 7:13 Paul speaks also of the appearing of sin (ἵνα φανῇ ἁμαρτία). Paul did apparently think that the effects of sin may be observed phenomenologically. On phenomenology and existential hermeneutics see above 2.2, 2.6 and 2.7. 32  Cf. Richard Beck, The Slavery of Death. Eugene: Cascade Books 2014. This is an interesting little book, but I disagree with its ontological premise, 3, that “death is the cause of sin.”

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stances, the accent is on the freedom from the bondage to sin that will lead to the inevitable outcome of death. The Time of Sin. There are two noteworthy aspects of sin vis-à-vis time. The first point is Paul’s view, in Rom. 5:13, that sin preceded the giving of Torah. Sin was in the cosmos before Torah (ἄχρι γὰρ νόμου ἁμαρτία ἦν ἐν κόσμῳ). Again, Paul does not explain what it means for him that sin existed in the cosmos. Was it a potential, but essentially dormant power? This may have been Paul’s position as the second half of Rom. 5:13 suggests: “sin is not reckoned when there is no law” (ἁμαρτία δὲ οὐκ ἐλλογεῖται μὴ ὄντος νόμου). However, from an ontological point of view, this ascertain is false. As Paul has said so himself, sin is a power, we are indwelled by it, it enslaves us and brings death; death comes to every person independent of whether Torah “reckons” sins or not. Death applies equally to all people, apart from the existence of Torah, or any other ethical codes. If so, then the only “sin” that Torah can measure is an act of sin, a transgression. This is the only sense in which Paul’s assertion can be deemed correct. At any rate, the key point for Paul seems that Torah is not responsible for the appearance of sin. Another way of saying this is that Torah is outside the sphere of either being responsible for the existence of sin, nor does it have anything to do with the solution from sin. In Pauline theology, as we shall see, there is no categorical correspondence between the giving and observing of Torah and the overcoming of the deathful power of sin. Even if, hypothetically speaking, a perfect observance of Torah would be possible, it would have no impact on the power of sin and death; an ethical solution to an ontological issue – is not a solution. The second point is that once human beings became self-conscious of the disclosedness of their being, they became at the same time conscious of their finiteness. The fall of the first human beings enlightened their eyes to the loss of their eternity. The power of death in creation marks the loss of infinity and the fall into a linear time-consciousness. The power of sin entraps a person between beginning and end of life.33 This phenomenon of living within specific delineators of time has opened up for Paul, as for many early Christian writers, the new horizon of eschatological fulfill33  However, with Emmanuel Levinas, God, Death and Time, translated by Bettina Bergo. Stanford: Stanford University Press 2000, 93, I am rejecting Heidegger’s pessimism that in time there is “essential disappointment” and that there is no eternity but “the tragic character of finite existence,” so much so that “time has no other meaning then to-be-toward death.” Pauline soteriology hinges precisely on reverting the timeoriented disappointment of a life towards death. For Paul, death is not the endpoint, but the beginning of a new life.

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ment. Even though human beings come from the specific kairos of birth, they move along toward the eschaton of death. To arrive at the eschaton “in good standing” is in a sense at the core of Paul’s proclamation. In the work of God himself, in the salvific act of Christ’s resurrection, the eschaton may in fact become a new kairos that once again opens the door to a life where infinity is restored. In summary, then, what can we conclude about Paul’s understanding of sin? The first conclusion, in light of the apostle’s biblical and Pharisaic background, is that he did not find a model of an ontological understanding of sin in his theological tradition. In the words of Timo Laato: “the idea that all human beings without exception are under the power of sin cannot possibly have its origin in Paul’s Pharisaic background. He must have reached this conclusion on the basis of his soteriology.”34 The last sentence points to Sanders’ now accepted suggestions that Paul “has a rich and well-developed conceptualization of man’s plight” and “he obviously reflected deeply on man’s plight in the light of the coming of Christ.”35 In other words, for Sanders, Paul’s thinking moved from solution to plight. But Sanders’ most important insight is that Paul’s “basic distinction” is “between the plight as transgression and as bondage to sin” and that “they went together in Paul’s own view.”36 A second conclusion, what Paul calls “slaves of sin” and Sanders refers to as the “bondage to sin,” is the ontological aspect of sinfulness. Otfried Hofius’ description of sin as a reality that effects a person’s total existence points to the basic ontological plight of every person. It is the enslaving power of sin that constitutes every person as a sinner and disrupts God’s image in every person. The radicality of sin lies not, however, only in the fact that it causes a disruption of life, but even more so in the fact that the consequence of sin is death. According to Hofius, Paul’s designation of human existence as ὑφ᾿ ἁμαρτίαν37 is his recognition that sin is a power that enslaves the very being of a person and does not merely operate in the realm of doing. Sin, in the singular, is therefore conceived by Paul as an ontological reality that inescapably disrupts the existence of every person. In the words of Hofius: “Die Sünde bestimmt so den Menschen selbst in seiner 34  Tim

Laato, “Paul’s Anthropological Considerations,” in Donald A. Carson et al (eds), Justification and Variegated Nomism, vol.  2, 343–359, here 344. 35  E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism. A Comparison of Patterns of Religion. Philadelphia: Fortress Press 1977, 508–509. 36 Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 509. 37  Cf. Otfried Hofius’ response to James D. G. Dunn, “What was the Issue between Paul and ‘Those of the Circumcision?’,” in Martin Hengel and Ulrich Heckel (eds), Paulus und das antike Judentum, WUNT 58 (Tübingen 1991) 295–317, here 314.

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ganzen Existenz; und der Sünder ist ‘gottlos’ nicht allein in seinem bösen Tun, sondern er ist es umfassend in seinem gottfernen und gott­feind­lichem Sein. Von diesem Sünder-Sein – und nicht etwa nur von einem bloßen Fehl­ verhalten oder einem von der Person als solcher ablösbaren Versagen – ist die Rede, wenn Paulus die in Röm 1,18–3,20 gegen Juden und Heiden erhobene Anklage … zusammenfaßt” (sin thus determines a person in his/ her whole existence; and the sinner is ‘godless’ not only in evil deeds, but is so entirely in a God-distant and God-hostile existence. This being a sinner – and not just a mere misconduct or a failure that can be detached from the person as such – is what Paul is talking about when he summarizes the accusation leveled against Jews and Gentiles in Rom 1:18–3:20).38 The third conclusion is that nowhere in Paul, or for that matter anywhere else in the New Testament, do we find the phrase “the forgiveness of sin” (ἡ ἄφεσις ἁμαρτίας)! This is decisive for a proper understanding of Pauline hamartiology. Nowhere in Paul do we read that Christ died for the forgiveness of our sin (singular).39 Indeed, such a statement is impossible, because it would utterly misconstrue the nature of sin as an ontological entity.40 The givenness of our sinfulness is an ontological fact that cannot be overcome by forgiveness. How can a designation of a person’s being be forgiven; and what is there that is in need of forgivenness? The peril of sin is such that its power needs to be broken and nullified. In the next chapter we will return to this very question because every other aspect of Pauline thinking depends on this pivotal thought as a proper starting point. 38 

123.

Otfried Hofius, “‘Rechtfertigung des Gottlosen’ als Thema biblischer Theologie,”

39  To repeat, Paul speaks of ἁμαρτία only seven out of 59 times in the plural. In 1 Cor. 15:17 he remarks that Χριστὸς ἀπέθανεν ὑπὲρ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν and so also in Gal. 1:4: Χριστοῦ τοῦ δόντος ἑαυτὸν ὑπὲρ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν. 40  Paul’s charge of a person’s ἀσέβεια (used as a synonym for sin) in Rom. 1:18–3:20 is characterized by Hofius (“‘Rechtfertigung des Gottlosen’ als Thema biblischer Theologie,” 122) in ontological language: godlessness “aber betrifft nicht bloß des Menschen Tun und Verhalten, sondern sie zeichnet ihn in seinem Sein und greift ins Zentrum seiner Person. Im Bruch mit Gott vollzieht sich unwiderrulich die Verfehlung der Daseinsbestimmung, von Gott her und für Gott zu leben; und mit dem Abfall von Gott verfällt der Abtrünnige total und radikal der von ihm selbst erwählten Sünde, so daß er – ‘gottlos’ geworden – unentrinnbar ὑφ᾿ ἁμαρτίαν ist (Röm 3,9)” (does not only concern a person’s actions and behavior, but it marks them in their being and reaches into the center of their person. In the break with God, there is irrevocably a failure to live authentically (Daseinsbestimmung) by God and for God; and with the apostasy from God the apostate falls totally and radically into the sin of his/her own choosing, so that he/ she – having become ‘godless’ – is inescapably ὑφ᾿ ἁμαρτίαν (Rom 3:9).)

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3.8  Sin and Sins in Romans 7 A pressing question for exegetes of Romans 7 is the matter of Paul’s portrayal of the “I” in this chapter. Is Paul speaking autobiographically of himself, and if so, is he speaking of himself as a Pharisee or as a disciple of Christ? Or else, is he describing some other person, a Jew, a Gentile, a Jewish Christian or a Gentile Christian, either pre or post baptism? I will not engage in an exegetical discussion of this question for two reasons. First, the issue has been discussed abundantly and competently and I do not think that I could add anything new to this debate.41 Second, and most important, because of my existential reading of this chapter I have reached the conclusion that what Paul has to say in these verses is primarily about the issue of sin and not about whether Paul speaks autobiographically or otherwise. In my view, Rom 7 is not a “psychoanalytical protocol”42 and neither was Paul plagued by guilt feelings or emotional conflicts.43 The issue is not primarily the question of who hides behind the “I” and then secondarily the issue what sin is. Methodologically, it seems to me, it is the reverse. Once we figure out the nature of sin, the question of the authorship of the “I” will fall into place without the need for exegetical sophistry. Above we already noted that in Rom. 7:14 Paul confesses that he is “under sin” (ἐγὼ δὲ σάρκινός εἰμι πεπραμένος ὑπὸ τὴν ἁμαρτίαν) and in Rom. 7:17 and 7:20 he speaks of the indwelling of sin (ἡ οἰκοῦσα ἐν ἐμοὶ ἁμαρτία). In each of these incidences he employs the singular ἁμαρτία. It is clear that Paul is not describing an act, deed or transgression here, but he is speaking here (as elsewhere, see 3.6 above) of something that has to do with his personhood, his existence, his very being. It is sin as a power that is holding Paul in his grip. But there is also another parallel thought explicated by Paul. Now he speaks of deeds. In 7:19 he explains the tension he is under when it comes to his carrying out deeds. “For I do not do the good I want,” Paul notes, “but the evil I do not want is what I do.” There is an undeniable tension, indeed an unbridgeable rift, between his intention and his actual deed. It is not a lack of good will that Paul decries here. As he says, he wants to do the good 41  I was unable to examine Jens Schröter: “Der Mensch zwischen Wollen und Tun. Erwägungen zu Römer 7 im Licht der “New Perspective on Paul,” in Paul-Gerhard Klumbies and David S. du Toit (eds) Paulus – Werk und Wirkung. Festschrift für An­dreas Lindemann zum 70. Geburtstag. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2013. 42  Bernd Kollmann, “Die Berufung und Bekehrung zum Heidenmissionar,” in Paulus Handbuch, 80–91, here 89. 43  Contra Kollmann, “Die Berufung und Bekehrung zum Heidenmissionar,” 86.

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(θέλω ποιῶ ἀγαθόν), but he does not do it and conversely false prey to doing evil (ἀλλὰ ὃ οὐ θέλω κακὸν τοῦτο πράσσω), in spite of all the good intentions. As he says himself: ὃ γὰρ κατεργάζομαι οὐ γινώσκω (Rom. 7:15)! Paul admits that he does himself not understand. In existential terms, understanding here means that Paul cannot make sense of his failure to do good. He simply cannot make it intelligible. There is a lack of sense and meaning here. The apostle is himself perplexed by doing exactly what he hates to do (ἀλλ᾽ ὃ μισῶ τοῦτο ποιῶ, Rom. 7:15). But then he goes on and offers an explanation, and a pretty good one as such: in Rom. 7:17 he first excuses himself, so to speak, by saying “but in fact it is no longer I that do it,” (νυνὶ δὲ οὐκέτι ἐγὼ κατεργάζομαι αὐτο) and then he pinpoints the real culprit: “but sin that dwells within me” (ἀλλὰ ἡ οἰκοῦσα ἐν ἐμοὶ ἁμαρτία). This lo­gic of reasoning, or should we say of exculpating himself, is so important to the apostle that he repeats it two more times, just two verses on in Rom. 7:20: “now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me” (εἰ δὲ ὃ οὐ θέλω [ἐγὼ] τοῦτο ποιῶ, οὐκέτι ἐγὼ κατεργάζομαι αὐτὸ ἀλλὰ ἡ οἰκοῦσα ἐν ἐμοὶ ἁμαρτία) and similarly in Rom. 7:23 where he speaks of “the law of sin that dwells in my members” (ἐν τῷ νόμῳ τῆς ἁμαρτίας τῷ ὄντι ἐν τοῖς μέλεσίν μου). Paul’s dilemma shows itself now quite clear: it is the inescapable dynamic between sin as power and sin as deed. Even though Paul wants to do good and resist evil, he is unable to resist or overcome the power of sin. Even with his own good will, it seems, he is powerless in the face of sin. Paul, like all human beings, is entangled in “an internal conflict,” indeed “an interior drama.”44 It is noteworthy, as Theodore Jennings remarks, that Romans 7 has often been interpreted through the lens of Augustine. In his own words, “indeed, there seems to be something of a tendency to read Paul through the concerns of the theologian who has transmitted a certain paulinism to the West, namely Augustine.” For Jennings this is not altogether a good thing, and he even charges Derrida with this “certain traditionalism.”45 The traditionalism Jennings has in mind, I suspect, has to do with Augustine’s teaching that has come down to us as the doctrine of inherited sin (Erbsündenlehre), or original sin. Whether Augustine was correct or not on characterizing sin as “original sin” or “hereditary sin” is secondary to his key observation non posse non peccare (that it is not possible not to sin)! 44 

Theodore W. Jennings, Jr., Reading Derrida / Thinking Paul. On Justice. Stanford: Stanford University Press 2006, 14. 45  Jennings, Jr., Reading Derrida / Thinking Paul. On Justice, 15.

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Augustine’s achievement in the discourse on hamartiology was not a matter of terminological clarification but the considerable insight, namely the phenomenological truth, that it is impossible for a person not to commit a deed of sin. The notion of genetically imparted sin has been abandoned for good reasons; but the claim of the impossibility of human sinning still stands today. And precisely because of this latter claim Augustine has his rightful place as a Pauline interpreter between Paul himself and us today. Augustine’s comprehension of the non posse non peccare is consistent with an ontological-existential interpretation of sin precisely because the non posse non peccare is conceptually parallel to the understanding that sin is an ontological category.46 To deny the Augustinian position in favour of a Pelagian or semi-Pelagian one simply goes against the grain of the most basic and universal human experience. One who clearly understands and correctly rejects all flirting with a Pelagian position on sin is Paul Tillich. Since variations of Pelagian thought are still prevalent today, it bears repeating in full what Tillich had concluded over half a century ago: “If estrangement were based only on the responsible decisions of the individual person, each individual could always either contradict or not contradict his essential nature. There would be no reason to deny that people could avoid and have avoided sin altogether. This was the Pelagian view, even if Pelagius had to admit that bad examples influence the decisions of free and responsible individuals. There is no such thing as ‘bondage of the will’ in this view. The tragic element of man’s predicament, manifest from earliest infancy, is disregarded. In the Christian tradition men like Augustine, Luther, and Calvin have rejected this view. Pelagian ideas were rejected by the early church, and semi-Pelagian ideas, which have become strong in the medieval church, were rejected by the Reformers. The neo-Pelagian ideas of contemporary moralistic Protestantism are rejected by neo-orthodox and existentialist theologians. Christianity knows and can never give up its knowledge of the tragic universality of existential estrangement.”47 What Tillich calls “existential estrangement” is what we call sin as an ontological-existential category, an Existenzial. 46  Cf. Hans Jonas, “Philosophische Meditation über Paulus, Römerbrief, Kapitel 7,” in Erich Dinkler (ed). Zeit und Geschichte. Dankesgabe an Rudolf Bultmann zum 80. Geburtstag. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck) 1964, 557–570. As a student of both Heidegger and Bultmann, Jonas argues that Paul’s view on sin rests in “der grund­ sätzlichsten existenzial-ontologischen Verfassung des Menschseins.” 47 Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, vol.   2. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press 1957, 41.

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In an engaging study, Ann Jervis offers a post-colonial reading of Romans 7 that has strong existential overtones.48 Although Jervis’ is interested in Paul’s construction of a new identity, a so-called hybrid identity that navigates between his Pharisaic past and apostolic identities, she employs post-colonial concepts and terms that are appropriate for our understanding of Paul’s wrestling with sin and sins in Romans 7. Jervis identified “two stages in the colonial drama: colonialization and postcolonialization.”49 The first stage is marked by “the colonizer, a foreign force that disrupts” and “the colonized, whose culture and identity are disrupted and subordinated against their will.”50 For Jervis, “it seems reasonable to understand Paul’s description of sin analogously to the colonizer, and the world and humanity as the colonized.” The second stage of colonization is marked by the retrieval of the colonial power and the ensuing need for the freed culture to find a new identity, typically with the assistance of a socalled “aid giver.”51 Our interest is in the first stage. Just as colonized peoples are occupied by a foreign power against their will and subjugated to a life that is severely disrupted from its former intactness, so analogously, for Paul the power of sin enslaves, disrupts, destroys and ultimately leads to death. What Paul describes in Romans 7 and elsewhere regarding sin is exactly the state of a colonized existence. In that sense, every human being lives a life colonized by the annihilating power of sin. The new postcolonial reality is the state after the departure of the colonizing power. In Paul, the colonized power (sin) is defeated by the coming of the Messiah, more precisely by the resurrection of the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth; he is the new ruler, the new κύριος. The characteristic problem of a people in a postcolonized context is the awareness “that in the struggle for a free identity the colonial past continues to resurface periodically.”52 Nonetheless, “sin no longer has power, only influence.” Becker states it to the point when he says that sin has “Machtcharakter” (character of a force) 53 and because it is a power “Sünde

48  L. Ann Jervis, “Reading Romans 7 in Conversation with Postcolonial Theory. Paul’s Struggle toward a Christian Identity of Hybridity,” in Christopher D. Stanley (ed), The Colonized Apostle. Paul through Postcolonial Eyes. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2011, 95–109. 49  Jervis, “Reading Romans 7 in Conversation with Postcolonial Theory,” 97. 50  Jervis, “Reading Romans 7 in Conversation with Postcolonial Theory,” 97–98. 51  Jervis, “Reading Romans 7 in Conversation with Postcolonial Theory,” 98. 52  Jervis, “Reading Romans 7 in Conversation with Postcolonial Theory,” 100. 53  Jürgen Becker, Paulus. Der Apostel der Völker. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck) 1989, 415.

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is nicht eine Tat und ihre Folge, sondern ein Aspekt der Person selbst” (sin is not an act with a consequence, but an aspect of the person as such).54 The struggle Paul describes in Romans 7 regarding being under the power of sin and not being able to do the good in spite of a positive intent is precisely the struggle that is typical of a social transformation from a colonized to a postcolonial reality. For Paul, however, I think the struggle is not primarily one of a new identity, but one of lordship. Paul, like all Christians – indeed, like all human beings, Jew and Greek – seek in principle to be free from an enslaving power. Still, the process of liberation and transformation is never a straight line, as it were, a movement from the reality of bondage to the new reality of freedom from sin. Even “after faith in Christ sin does not disappear… [but] still has the capacity to come to life again.”55 Just as over and over again the colonial past creeps in and wants to derail the new life of the postcolonial people, so likewise, the power of sin irrupts unexpectedly and want to take the believer in the Messiah captive once more. Let us return for a moment to the question of the authorship of the “I.” Is Paul speaking autobiographically as a Pharisee or as a disciple of the Messiah? Is he speaking of Christians, Jews, Gentiles or is he generally describing the human situation? The answer, in an existential reading, is plainly evident. Paul describes the general human disposition of being enslaved to sin, an ontological disposition that is equal for all people, irrespective of their religious affiliation or lack thereof.56 Every person experiences his or her own struggle of wanting to do good but being unable to do so. Like Paul, many who follow Christ are all too keenly aware of the enslavement they still experience, in spite having left the colonizing power behind. Karl Barth expresses the universality of the power of sin eloquently in the second edition of his Römerbrief. There he notes that “Sünde ist das spezifische Gewicht der menschlichen Natur als solcher” (sin is the specific weight of human nature as such).57 For Barth this means that Paul did not record his history before his encounter on the road to Damascus; “sondern festgestellt hat Paulus, kongenial verstanden von den Reformatoren, nicht verstanden von der mit pietistischer Brille lesenden neueren Theologie, sein Sein in Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und Zukunft. Die 54 Becker,

Paulus. Der Apostel der Völker, 414. Jervis, “Reading Romans 7 in Conversation with Postcolonial Theory,” 101. 56  Contra Otfried Hofius, “Der Mensch im Schatten Adams,” in Paulusstudien II, 104–145, here 111, who argues that Paul speaks of the “person apart from Christ.” 57  Karl Barth, Der Römerbrief. Second edition 1922. Zurich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich, 12th reprint 1940, 151. 55 

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Wirklichkeit seines Seins ‘vor’ und ‘nach’ Damaskus ist diese Wirklichkeit” (but Paul – congenially understood by the Reformers, not understood by the newer theology reading with pietistic glasses – stated his being in the past, present and future. The reality of his being ‘before’ and ‘after’ Damascus is this reality).58 Paradoxically, though overcome in the resurrected Messiah, the power of sin is determinative for our past, present and future. Broken and altogether disempowered, it still has influence over our lives. How is this possible? We will return to this question in chapter 7.2.

3.9  The Distinction between Sin and Sins In my reading of the Pauline letters and my understanding of the Christian tradition, I think that there is hardly any point of distinction more significant than the distinction between sin and sins. For our understanding of “the problem” will necessarily determine the depth and coherence of our answer.59 This is true for Paul himself as well for all Christian theological reflection. But why? It is fundamental because by clearly understanding the hamartiological plight we correspondingly understand the soteriological solution to the plight.60 A weak understanding of the nature of sin will inevitably yield a weak understanding of salvation. If sin is the issue that humanity and the cosmos face in their movement toward death, then it follows that the solution must correspond to the overcoming of death (see chapter 5). Paul gives us several clear indications that the life, death and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah are, indeed, about the defeat of the power of death – and not merely a means by which sins could be forgiven. Already in Paul, we have seen that sin and sins are two vastly distinct though crucially related entities. This point cannot be emphasized enough. For now, the distinction between sin and sins can be summarized in these 58 Barth,

Der Römerbrief. Second edition 1922, 253. though Steffi Fabricius, Pauline Harmatiology: Conceptualisation and Transferences. HUTh 74. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2017, by means of her cognitive semantic approach comes at times very close to the positions I advocate in this study, I do not agree with her thesis statement that “due to its prevalence within the linguistic field of structuralism, New Testament exegesis has to view ἁμαρτία to mean the one or the other: a personal power a personification or an action – and this represents the main problem of the biblical analysis of Pauline ἁμαρτία,” 122. The main problem is not simply an either-or option, but the issue of the proper (ontological, conceptual, theological, ethical) correlation between sin and sins. 60  Cf. Peter Frick, “The Means and Mode of Salvation: A Hermeneutic Proposal for Clarifying Pauline Soteriology,” in Horizons in Biblical Theology 29 (2007), 203–222. 59 Even

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terms: sin (in the singular) is the ontological reality or gap that manifests itself as an ineluctable and ultimately destructive power over human existence. Sin entails being a sinner (Sünder-Sein) and corresponds to the Augustinian peccatum originale (radicale, personale). 61 In other words, sin is the issue for humanity and the cosmos. Its end is death. Sins (in the plural) are the acts or deeds that we human beings commit (Tatsünde), in Augustine’s terminology they are peccatum actuale;62 these sins are the result of our being under the power of sin.63 They are not existential-ontological in a primary sense, but they take all kind of existentiell-ontic forms, manifestations and expressions in that they have various ethical, psychological, sociological, ecological and other structural realities. It is now decisive to understand that from the ontological reality of sin, from the fact that we are sinners from the moment of birth, follows as a consequence that we commit acts or deeds of sin. Expressed in simple terms, from the reality of sin follow the deeds of sin; sin breeds sins. This sequence is irreversible. The ontological priority of the power of sin leads to the ontic structure of ethical64 transgressions and not the other way round. It is because of the power of sin that a person commits acts of sin. It is not the individual acts of sin that turn a person into a sinner and thereby constitute one’s sinfulness. To summarize: the distinction between the ontological reality of sin and its ontic outworking in sins is decisive both for our understanding of Paul and subsequent Christian theology. 1. As human beings, we are sinners. 65 For Paul, we are sinners, therefore, we commit sins. We are sinners because of our ontological reality of being under the death threat of a life that is severed from God. We are not sinners because we have committed acts of sin. Our sinfulness is ontological and

61  Eberhard Jüngel, “Amica Exegesis einer römischen Note,” in ZThK, Beiheft 10, Zur Rechtfertigungslehre, 264. 62  Jüngel, “Amica Exegesis einer römischen Note,” 264. 63 Fabricius, Pauline Hamartiology, 156, is correct when she remarks that the “existential state of sin keeps forcing us to perform actions of sin, which puts a power aspect to Paul’s embodied experience of ἁμαρτιά as a state.” 64  I am employing the word “ethical” to describe the consequences of the ontological reality of sin in a very broad manner. We can use countless other words to describe those disruptions of life due to sin with adjectives such as “physical, sexual, psychological, social, racial, structural, political” etc. 65  Curiously, Paul does not speculate on the origin of sin. Theodicy was not a central aspect of the Pauline theological horizon. Paul merely states that sin came into the world through Adam (cf. Rom. 5:12) and it came to life (cf. Rom. 7:9; see, however, Ben Sira 25:24) as an enslaving power.

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not ethical. Augustine perceived this issue perceptively over Pelagius in their controversy. 2. The inability to keep Torah cannot make Jews anymore sinners than Gentiles who do not have Torah. Torah has nothing to do with sin (in the singular). It magnifies the deadly power of sin by measuring and marking concrete transgressions (in the plural) as sins. In the Christian tradition, right down to our own time, no immoral act can make a person a sinner, as also no moral perfectionism has anything to do with overcoming the power of sin. 3. If sin is indeed an existential-ontological condition of being human, then it follows that it cannot be forgiven. The nature of sin is such that its solution is exclusively to overcome its power. Liberation from sin is its disempowerment, and not its forgiveness. Only sins, the acts that flow from our being under sin, can be forgiven. 4. As we noted above, Paul’s insight is that Jesus died to free us principally from sin (Rom 6:10, 18). If sins (in the plural), as acts of transgression, were the key issue for Paul, then Jesus would not have had to die and be resurrected. Atonement for sins alone did not require the Messiah to die a violent death. At the time of Jesus’ death, life under Torah included all the provision to seek atonement for sins at the temple through the priestly orders. We will discuss these questions in detail in chapter 4. 5. But because sin is existential-ontological in nature, the power of sin had to be broken. In the resurrection of the crucified Messiah, precisely this deadly power was overcome and definitively defeated. Death, the last enemy, was conquered once and for all time. 6. Believers in the resurrected Messiah, both Jew and Gentile, share tentatively in the power of the resurrection. Indwelled by the spirit of the living God, they are able to embrace a life that can find meaning and purpose, or in existential terminology, a life of authenticity.

3.10  Sin as Ontological-Existential Category (Existenzial) We are now finally in a position to bring together our earlier findings and return to the question at the beginning of this chapter by providing a concise outline of how we can understand sin as an ontological-existential category (Existenzial). We will describe five different aspects that are constitutive for our understanding of Paul. 1. Sin is an Existential-Ontological Power. In chapter 2.2 we have discussed that an ontological-existential category (Existenzial) belongs to the

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foundational structures of every person’s Dasein. Life outside of these – Heidegger calls them “existential-ontological” – structures is impossible. On first glance, it seems that Heidegger defines Existenzialien like categories, but that is not the case. While categories are predicators of things (Dingprädikatoren), Existenzialien are exclusively anthropological predicators (anthropologische Prädikatoren) 66 of Dasein, but always as an ontological structure. Heidegger identifies the following as belonging to the “Grundstrukturen des Daseins” (fundamental structures of life) 67 or Existenzialien: In-der-Welt-sein (Being-in-the-world); Mitsein (Dasein-with of Others); Man (“they”); Erschlossenheit (disclosedness) in the three modes of Befindlichkeit (state-of-mind), 68 Verstehen (understanding) and Rede (discourse); Verfallenheit (falling) as Uneigentlichkeit (inauthenticity); Entschlossenheit (resoluteness) in the modes of Angst (anxiety), Tod (death) or Sorge (care) and Gewissen (conscience); and finally, Entschlossenheit (resoluteness) als Eigentlichkeit (authenticity). 69 These notions are basic to Heidegger’s project in Being and Time. But since we are not interested in Heidegger’s philosophic existentialism as such, we will only draw on the above elements, and add others, that are crucial to our project (truth as Existenzial, thrownness, temporality) of working out a hermeneutical framework for understanding Paul. The critical aspect in this regard is that “the existential analytic of Dasein comes before any psychology or anthropology, and certainly … biology.”70 We must also add that such ontological-existential analytic of our being certainly also comes before theology and, therefore, also before biblical studies, that is to say, before any attempt to interpret and understand Paul. In fact, it is precisely this pre-hermeneutical standpoint of the existential analytic that lays the foundation for understanding a framework that provides the possibility for an authentic understanding of Paul and us in our contemporary world. As human beings we share the ontological-existential structures with Paul, but as individuals our ontic-existentiell experiences of these structures are unique.

66  Cf. Christof Landmesser, Wahrheit als Grundbegriff in der neutestamentlichen Wissenschaft. WUNT 113. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 1999, 143, note 241. 67 Landmesser, Wahrheit als Grundbegriff in der neutestamentlichen Wissenschaft, 143. 68  For reasons of translating Befindlichkeit as “state-of-mind,” see Heidegger, Being and Time, 172, note 2. 69 For a discussion of each of these Existenzialien in Heidegger, see Landmesser, Wahrheit als Grundbegriff in der neutestamentlichen Wissenschaft, 112–143. 70 Heidegger, Being and Time, 71.

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As human beings we encounter one of the ontological-existential structures as immense negative and destructive force, a power 71 that we call with Paul “sin.” Sin as ontological power is unavoidable and inescapable for human beings. It is only here on this level – where the life of every single person is affected by the disruptiveness of the consequences of the power of sin – that any human universality can be grounded and claimed. A life disfigured by sin is the most basic common characteristic of humanity; it is the only reality in which all people, even if only to various degrees, participate. Sin, in short, is an Existenzial,72 a scarring ontological structure. Recently, in a study that comes closest to my position, Steffi Fabricius has employed the expressions “sin as existential power” or similar expressions.73 Studying Paul’s thought from the perspective of cognitive semantic theory, Fabricius refers to sin as “action,”74 “event,”75 “state”76 and “power,”77 as “an existential powerful state,”78 death as a “state” and a “movement.”79 She also notes that the “mega-metaphor” for Paul’s understanding of ἁμαρτία is “an existential powerful state.”80 Since Fabricius’ work is guided by linguistic and cognitive theory, her emphasis on ontology is secondary, though implied, and on occasion explicitly discussed. For example, she moves away from substance ontology in favour of what she calls “relational ontology.”81 It seems to me that she does so to avoid the traditional perplexities between essence and existence. Her ontological assumption is that “I will assume the existence of internal and external relations that equally make up the essence of an entity.”82 This means, “for the ontological understanding and actuality of man [sic] … that man has and needs 71  The former pope Benedict XVI says it quite well, that “the inner contradiction of our being is not a theory;” cf. Joseph Ratzinger, (Pope Benedict XVI). Paul of Tarsus. London: Catholic Truth Society 2009, 111. 72  Patrick Bahl, Die Macht der Sünde im Römerbrief. BhTh 189. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2019, 205, calls sin “überindividuelle Macht” a supra-individual power. Bahl works out Paul’s line of argument on sin in the context of ancient rhetoric. Though I agree with many of Bahl’s conclusions, I am somewhat sceptical concerning Paul’s own hermeneutical self-awareness of the details of rhetorical argumentation. 73 Steffi Fabricius, Pauline Harmatiology: Conceptualisation and Transferences. HUTh 74. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2017. 74 Fabricius, Pauline Harmatiology, 125. 75 Fabricius, Pauline Harmatiology, 128. 76 Fabricius, Pauline Harmatiology, 152. 77 Fabricius, Pauline Harmatiology, 168. 78 Fabricius, Pauline Harmatiology, 3, 173, 179, 232, 244, 251. 79 Fabricius, Pauline Harmatiology, 199–204. 80 Fabricius, Pauline Harmatiology, 170. 81 Fabricius, Pauline Harmatiology, 86. 82 Fabricius, Pauline Harmatiology, 86.

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other entities, namely God and the surrounding world, who give man the very ontological being and existence he supposedly has.”83 I take it that relational ontology thus entails the interdependence of God as creator, the cosmos and human beings. I do not understand the characterization of human beings as those to whom God gives “the very ontological being and existence.” The phrase “ontological being” sounds tautological; for how can being and existence be non-ontological? At any rate, Fabricius is at her best when she examines Paul from the perspective of cognitive semantic theory, and less so from an ontological angle. My emphasis on ontology and existence is not to describe semantically what Paul’s view of sin may have been, but to demonstrate how the ontological grip of sin marks the inescapable disruption of human and cosmic life, and what that coercion means existentially. 2. Falling and Thrownness into the Power of Sin. In typical style, Hei­ degger plainly asserts that “an existential mode of Being-in-the-world is documented in the phenomenon of falling.”84 Heidegger understands “falling” (Verfallenheit) in the literal sense as “falling away, falling apart.” This falling belongs to everydayness of Dasein and “does not express any negative evaluation” but has “fallen away (abfallen) from itself as an authentic potentiality for Being its Self.”85 Falling is thus the possibility of Dasein to fall into inauthenticity. As such “falling is a definitive existential characteristic of Dasein itself.” But “we would misunderstand the ontologico-existential structure of falling if we were to ascribe to it the sense of a bad and deplorable ontical property.”86 Falling as a characteristic of Dasein, Heid­ egger further argues, thus points to the basic “movement” of Dasein, a “downward plunge (Absturz)” into the groundlessness and nullity of inauthentic everydayness.”87 The key here is that the movement of falling or plunging shows itself in the phenomena of temptation, tranquillizing, alienation and self-entangling within a movement of turbulence (Wirbel). Therefore, “Dasein’s facticity is such that as long as it is what it is, Dasein remains in the throw.”88 At this point in the discourse something astonishing happens in Being and Time. Quite unexpectedly and uncharacteristically, Heidegger even 83 Fabricius,

Pauline Harmatiology, 88. Being and Time, 221 (original emphasis). On the meaning of the verb verfallen as “deteriorating, decay,” cf. Heidegger, Being and Time, 42, note 2 and 172, note 1. 85 Heidegger, Being and Time, 220. 86 Heidegger, Being and Time, 220. 87 Heidegger, Being and Time, 223. 88 Heidegger, Being and Time, 223. 84 Heidegger,

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briefly raises the question of whether his view of “falling” and “thrownness” is somehow reminiscent of the (Christian) matter of sin. He prefaces his ensuing remarks with the cautionary comment that the phenomenon of falling is not merely the “night view” of Dasein but “an essential ontological structure of Dasein.”89 Then he points out that his existential-ontological analytic of Dasein “makes no ontical assertion about the ‘corruption of human Nature’.”90 The reason is that falling and thrownness are conceived “ontologically as a kind of motion. Ontically, we have not decided whether man is ‘drunk with sin’ and in the status corruptionis.”91 Fair enough. Heidegger seems to be somewhat open to the possibility that Dasein’s falling is what in Christian teaching is called sin. But the case for such an assertion must be made as an ontological-existential argument and not simply an ontic claim. Heidegger noted earlier with regard to falling that we must not understand “the fallenness of Dasein as a ‘fall’ from a purer and higher ‘primal status’. Not only do we lack any experience of this ontically, but ontologically we lack any possibility or clues for Interpreting it.”92 Heidegger comes close to admitting that sin may be conceived of an Existenzial. But he does not take that step. It is speculative, but perhaps Heidegger is unable to take this step because he is so intent of getting out of the metaphysical straitjacket that he sees operative in much of the debate that equates Being with God. Unlike Heidegger, however, I do think that the ground of Being is God and that we are justified to characterize falling (Verfallenheit) as sin. I disagree with Heidegger that “ontologically we lack any possibility or clues for Interpreting” falling. My position is precisely that the existential-ontological phenomenon of falling can be interpreted phenomenologically and universally as an Existenzial, and theologically as “sin.” There is sufficient evidence in Paul, as I have tried to demonstrate in this chapter, that allows for the conclusion that he conceptualizes sin on the ontological level as both fallenness and falling and on the ontic level as the committing of acts of sin. 3. Sin as Inauthenticity and Estrangement. Dasein’s ontological reality of falling prevents what Heidegger deems an authentic existence. He defines inauthenticity of Dasein in these terms: “on no account, however, do the terms ‘inauthentic’ and ‘non-authentic’ signify ‘really not’, as if in this mode of Being Dasein were altogether to lose its Being.”93 In ontological89 Heidegger,

Being and Time, 224. Being and Time, 224. 91 Heidegger, Being and Time, 224. 92 Heidegger, Being and Time, 220. 93 Heidegger, Being and Time, 220. 90 Heidegger,

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existential terms, the falling of humanity does not mean to lose existence, but “in the mode of inauthenticity”94 it is possible to forfeit that “understanding itself is a potentiality-for-Being which must be made free in one’s ownmost Dasein alone.” If such self-understanding is not realized, one “drifts along towards an alienation [Entfremdung].”95 As a result, “this alienation closes off from Dasein its authenticity and possibility… it does not, however, surrender Dasein to an entity which Dasein itself is not.”96 The mode of inauthenticity may then be aptly characterized as an alienating falling (entfremdendes Verfallen) in which Dasein does not come to understanding.97 Paul Tillich also employs the idea of alienation and characterizes the power of sin as such, but he prefers to use the term “estrangement.” Tillich speaks of the inauthentic life as estranged.98 Given our postmodern sensibilities, for many people it very difficult and for some nearly impossible to make much sense of the word “sin.” Its psychological baggage is so burdensome that few can actually carry it. I agree with Tillich that there are better designations for sin, terms like estrangement, disruption, or interference with life. The underlying problem is that for much of Christian history sin is falsely understood as a psychological or ethical reality. As such it stands in the way of faith, and that not as a little bump, but as an insurmountable hurdle. Paul Tillich speaks of sin as “the state of estrangement” and asserts that “man’s predicament is estrangement, but his estrangement is sin.”99 He makes such an assertion on the ground that in Paul “the plural ‘sins’ … has little to do with ‘sin’ as the state of estrangement.”100 In other words, Tillich is fully aware of the exegetical nuance and theological distinction between sin (in the singular) and sins (in the plural) in Paul, a distinction we worked out in previous sections. Elsewhere Tillich defines estrangement in these terms: “Entfremdung [ist] keine Sache bewusster Entscheidung, sondern ein Zustand, der allen persönlichen Entscheidungen vorrausgeht” (alienation [is] not a matter of 94 Heidegger,

Being and Time, 224. Being and Time, 222. 96 Heidegger, Being and Time, 222. 97 Cf. Landmesser, Wahrheit als Grundbegriff in der neutestamentlichen Wissenschaft, 133. 98  Cf. Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, vol.  2. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1957, 44–47. 99  Cf. Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, 2, 46. 100 Tillich, Systematic Theology, 2, 46. 95 Heidegger,

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conscious choice, but a state that precedes all personal choices).101 It is noteworthy that Tillich is right on the mark when he establishes that estrangement is a state or condition of our existence, hence an ontological reality, an Existenzial (he does not employ this term) that he links back to the fall. But Tillich also offers another equally as important an observation. He suggests that a person’s ontic-existential estrangement (ontisch-exis­ tentielle Entfremdung) from God does not nullify one’s ontological-essential belonging (ontologische-essentielle Verbundenheit) to God.102 On the basis of this distinction, Tillich wants to clarify that even though sin constitutes the loss of our essential nature [Wesensverfehlung], restitution [Wesenserfüllung] is not completely thwarted because we are under the power of sin. Tillich’s notion of Wesenserfüllung is in a sense what Heid­ egger has termed authenticity, namely the possibility of a meaningful Dasein. In the language of Genesis, even though we are under the power of sin, we nonetheless still retain the imago Dei; we are inclined to evil, but also to good. 4. Anxiety, Care and Death. Heidegger assigns the three terms anxiety, care and death a great deal of significance, both in terms of its existential-ontological structure of Dasein and its existentiell-ontical manifestations in everyday experience. “Anxiousness,” Heidegger claims (following Kierkegaard),103 “is a basic kind of Being-in-the-world” but in such a way that “in falling, Dasein turns away from itself” and is thus “an entity with the character of threatening.”104 The turning-away and threat of falling in anxiety is thus “anxiety [das Wovor der Angst]” – distinct from fear – as “Being-in-the-world as such.”105 Landmesser says it well when he notes that if anxiety is being in the world as such, “dann ist das Dasein in der Angst vor seine Möglicheiten zu sein gestellt” (then existence is put in fear of its possibilities).106 Nonetheless, “Being-in-the-world is essentially care 101  Paul Tillich, Philosophie und Schicksal. Schriften zur Erkenntnislehre und Exis­ tenzphilosophie. GW Band IV. Stuttgart: Evangelisches Verlagswerk 1961, 198. See also Paul Tillich, Die Frage nach dem Unbedingten. Schriften zur Religionsphilosophie. GW Band V. Stuttgart: Evangelisches Verlagswerk 1964, 167: “der Mensch ist an die Sünde gebunden mit allen Funktionen seines Seins, da er in seinem Person-Zentrum von Gott entfremdet ist” (the human being is bound to sin with all the functions of being, since s/ he is alienated from God in his/her person-center). 102  Cf. Oswald Bayer, Theologie. Handbuch zur Systematischen Theologie 1. Güters­ loh: Gütersloher Verlags-Haus Mohn 1994, 205. 103 Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, 253, note 3. 104 Heidegger, Being and Time, 230. 105 Heidegger, Being and Time, 230. 106 Landmesser, Wahrheit als Grundbegriff in der neutestamentlichen Wissenschaft, 134.

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[Sorge],” but in a “purely ontologico-existential manner” and not ontically in the sense of worry [Besorgnis] or carefreeness [Sorglosigkeit].”107 Care does also not indicate a “special attitude toward the Self” such as concern [Besorgen] or solicitude [Fürsorge]. Heidegger simply wants to establish that care belongs to “a primordial structural totality,” to an “existentially a priori.” Care is therefore not grounded psychologically, as an act of willing and wishing, but care is “rooted with ontological necessity in Dasein.”108 On the ontic level, anxiety, fear and care are the existentiality of sin. 5. Sin cannot be Known. In Being and Time, Heidegger characterizes in §  31 “understanding as a fundamental existentiale”109 in relation to Dasein’s potentiality-for-Being.110 In that sense, understanding is not merely something that may be added to Dasein, as if it could add value or depth that Dasein would otherwise lack. “And only because Dasein, in understanding, is its ‘there’, can it go astray and fail to recognize itself.”111 In other words, Dasein’s very structure is its understanding; that is why it is an Existenzial. Even though, the content of understanding is as of yet undetermined, and is dependent on something else, namely meaning. Heid­ egger also characterizes meaning as “an existentiale of Dasein.”112 This entails that Dasein’s “own Being and the entities disclosed with its Being can be appropriated in undersanding, or can remain relegated to non-understanding.” For this reason, understanding discloses itself in “intelligibility” and “only Dasein can be meaningful [sinnvoll] or meaningless [sinn­los].”113 At this point in our examination of sin we encounter a crucial moment. In spite of the fact that we have determined that sin is an ontological-existential category, an Existenzial, and that we have also taken up Heidegger’s position that both understanding and meaning are an Existenzial, it does thereby not follow that we can understand sin. Sin is not just a structural component of our being that we can deduce logically or intellectually. In fact, we must go one step further and say that it is impossible for any person to understand sin as sin. Sin cannot be known, or more precisely, sin cannot know itself as sin. 107 Heidegger,

Being and Time, 237. Being and Time, 238. 109 Heidegger, Being and Time, 182, 192. 110 Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, 192: “Verstehen ist das existenziale Sein des eigenen Seinkönnens des Daseins selbst.” 111 Heidegger, Being and Time, 184. 112 Heidegger, Being and Time, 193. 113 Heidegger, Being and Time, 193. 108 Heidegger,

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How can we resolve this aporia? By saying that sin is an Existenzial, we claim that sin is part of the structure of our being. Or we can say that we are sinners, because we cannot live outside of the structure of sin. This is what Paul calls the living or being “under (the power of) sin” (cf. Rom. 3:9: πάντας ὑφ᾽ ἁμαρτίαν εἶναι, Gal. 3:22: τὰ πάντα ὑπὸ ἁμαρτίαν). But this kind of living in sin cannot be known as sin but only as a phenomenologically experienced reality. As human beings, we can describe our experiences within our disrupted existence; we are able to point to the effects of sin in our daily lives precisely because our life is embedded in the structure of sin. But we are not able as such to know that our disrupted life is the result of being dominated by a power that we, in theological retrospect, have determined to call sin. Even people who have never heard of the concept or the term sin will experience the disruption of life in the same manner as those who are accustomed to speaking of sin all their lives. The designation of that power is secondary, its experience is primary. This, to repeat, is why we must understand sin as an ontological and existential category; sin is effectuated as a universal ontology. We are enslaved to the structures that dominate our lives, but we are therefore not automatically privy to understand what that enslavement means. Understanding of sin is impossible; what is possible is that we understand the experiences that result from the dominating power, in theological terms, the deeds of sins, or simply our sins. This is a fine but decisive nuance. Why are we not able to understand the power of sin as such? The answer we cannot find in Paul, but in theological reflection. One of the most penetrating analyses comes from the young Bonhoeffer: “Were it really a human possibility for persons themselves to know that they are sinners apart from revelation, neither ‘being in Adam’ nor ‘being in Christ’ would be existential designations of their being. For it would mean that human beings could place themselves into the truth, that they could somehow withdraw to a deeper being of their own, apart from being sinners.”114 As a good theologian Bonhoeffer works on the foundation that “Christian thinking has to be conscious of its particular premise, that is, of the premise of the reality of God, before and beyond all thinking.”115 Bonhoeffer assumes that all reality falls under the category – he uses the word “desig114  Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Act and Being: Transcendental Philosophy and Ontology in Systematic Theology (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English 2). Translated by H. Martin Rumscheidt, edited by Wayne W. Floyd. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 1996, 136. Henceforth DBWE 2. 115  Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Barcelona, Berlin, New York 1928–1931 (Dietrich Bonhoef-

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nation” (Bestimmung) – of “being in Adam,” that is to say, the ontological state of our fallenness. Fallenness includes and disrupts our thinking. This is not to say that all thinking is sinful all the time, but what it does mean, is that thinking as such cannot place itself into the truth, into the disclosedness of its own thinking. In epistemological discourse, “the I, now thinking itself, simply becomes the point of departure instead of the limit-point of philosophy. But thinking cannot do this without losing two very different things, reality and transcendence, that is, the one through the other. Philosophy, thinking, the I, all come under the power of themselves, rather than transcendence … Thinking languishes in itself; precisely where it is free from the transcendent, from reality, there it is imprisoned in itself.”116 Put differently, as I have said elsewhere, “Philosophy cannot have an adequate comprehension of its own epistemological limit because it can never place a person into the reality of sin. The very nature of sin is its impossibility to know itself as sin.” As Bonhoeffer suggests, sin cannot be seen in its own darkness, but only in the light of revelation (see chapter 2.7). If thinking undistorted by sin were a possibility, then sin would not really be an epistemologically enslaving power and, consequently, the salvific and redemptive work of Jesus Christ would be rendered futile. In other words, the I, the self, cannot come to itself because its ontological reality and hence epistemological possibility is distorted by the power of sin.”117 In short, the very fact that sin is an Existenzial precludes its own self-knowledge. If so, what kind of knowledge can we have of sin? As we will work out later in greater detail, for now it suffices to note that we cannot know sin, other than by faith. Again in Bonhoeffer’s words: “The knowledge of what sin is comes solely through the mediation of the Word of God in Christ” hence “sola fide credendum est nos esse peccatores (only by faith can we believe that we are sinners).”118 We will examine this claim more thoroughly in chapter 6 where we will also engage in a comprehensive discussion of the question of the nature of sins (and why they are not an Existenzial). Crucial issues that we will examine first as we progress are the questions of fer Works English 10). Translated by Douglas W. Stott, edited by Clifford J. Green. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2008, 442. 116  DBWE 2, 39. Cf. Oswald Bayer, Theologie, 507, “die Sünde aber reißt den Unterschied zwischen Theologie und Philosophie” (but sin tears the difference between theology and philosophy). 117 Peter Frick, “Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Engaging Intellect – Legendary Life,” in Frick, Understanding Bonhoeffer, 3–22, here 16. 118  DBWE 2, 145.

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christology vis-à-vis Jesus’ conquering of sin in chapter 4, and how precisely God’s grace is the corresponding power-act to overcome sin, in chapter 5.

3.11  Sins as Action We have discussed the difference between sin and sins and defined sin as an ontological-existential category. We will now briefly (for more detail see chapter 7.5) comment on sins as action. Sins – in the plural – denote actions and deeds. They are not an Existenzial, because they do not share a universal ontological-existential structure. Sins are ontic, but not ontological.119 While they share in the ontology of sin as a power, their manifestations in the everydayness of life are as different and unique as the individual person. All sins have a common denominator in that they erode and destroy life. Nonetheless, the sum of our acts of sin does not constitute us as sinners. What follows is a basic categorization of how we can envision sins as actions (Tatsünden). 1. Sins are Ethical. Typically, and in a broad sense, we think of sins as ethical wrongdoing, offence or misconduct. Accordingly, we classify sins as transgression, breaking a rule, violating a commandment and so on. And the person who is doing such a thing is then most often simply marked as the sinner. The reason for classifying sins primarily as ethical has its origins, as we saw, in biblical Judaism and, as we shall see in the next chapter, also in much of the teachings of Jesus, Paul himself and the New Testament in general. The Decalogue, for instance, is the starting point for the ethical view of sins when it reminds Israel: “Honor your father and your mother… You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor” (Exodus 20:12–17). Although it is the case that many of the sins we commit fall within the category of an ethical act of sin, it would be extremely short-sighted, indeed quite theologically deficient, to overlook the much

119  To say that sins are ontic and not ontological does not mean that they are less “real.” This distinction points rather at the universal aspect of sin as an ontological structure and the personal manifestation of that ontological structure as an act in the life of the individual person, designated as “ontic” by Heidegger. Ontological structures are the invisible realities of the visible and tangible experiences of sins.

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broader perspectives on acts of sin based on our understanding of sin as an existential structure. 2. Sins are Structural. Our main thesis for this study is that sin must be understood as an ontological-existential condition. As we argued, this means that our human Dasein – that is to say, at the most basic level: our daily lives in all of the various contexts – are embedded in fundamental structures that are constitutive universally for the unfolding and disclosing of human existence. These structures are ontological-existential structures apart from which and outside of which we human being cannot live. In other words, our Dasein is fundamentally characterized by structures. Since sin – as the power of sin – is such a dominating structure of our being, it follows that the acts of sin are also structural. Even though, while the power of sin is structural in an ontological dimension, sins as acts are only ontic. That means that the structures of the acts of sin are different for individual persons and communities. What sins are in a structural sense may be illustrated by recourse to the classic work of Gustavo Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation.120 Gutiérrez analyzes in detail how deeply embedded structures in Latin America have become straitjackets for acts of sin. These structures include the dynamics of the economic system, unemployment and underemployment, the structure of hunger and poverty, the oppression of women and children and the presence of political corruption. We may also add such structures that allow for racism, sexism and many other forms of human oppression. These realities are predicated on structures within which acts of sin are routinely passed on as if they were normal. But structural sins are not normal because they erode human existence and lead to destruction of life and even death. Acts of structural sins are perhaps also the most difficult ones to identify, analyze and overcome because it is so extremely difficult to situate responsibility. Who is guilty of an act of sin: governments, corporations, the wealthy elites, the corrupted power brokers? 3. Sins are Environmental. Environmental acts of sin may be individual or structural, and often they are both in that a structure breeds an individual act of sin. When we speak of the environment and sin we do so in a larger theological context. We are not speaking of the destruction of the environment due to the normal cycles of nature. Acts of sin are the global 120  Gustavo

Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation. Translated by Sister Caridad Inda and John Eagleson. Maryknoll: Orbis Books, revised edition, 1988.

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structures that allow the slow but eventual destruction of the earth that God created for the sake of all his people. The structures that make possible the devastating effects of climate change and the pollution of land, water and air are structures that breed sins on a gigantic and life-threatening scale. 4. Sins are Social. Perhaps the largest sphere within which we as human beings experience the shattering effect of sins is in what we may simply call the social realm, or the political sphere. Given the vast social network each person belongs to, it comes of little surprize that we are constantly either committing our own acts of sin toward others or we are the recipients of such acts. Many of the so-called -ims of our day are located here. The challenge is to unmask the social structures that have been deeply and widely entrenched in our social pathways as problematic acts of sin, for example such as racism and sexism. Within various social structures it is possible that entire groups and communities are oppressed, disadvantaged and discriminated upon. One form of sin that manifests itself in the social sphere is that of violence, aggression and terrorism. The roots of destructive violence may be psychological, social or structural or a combination of various such challenges. 5. Sins are Psychological. The personal side of sins as social structure is the act of psychological sins. Because of the power of sin, it is possible that we are ourselves committing an act of psychological sin. The power of sin renders us volatile to such behaviour. Sin wants to keep us at bay from our own authentic emotional wholeness. We may be plagued by anxiety, fear, aggression, violence and all kinds of mental challenges and illness. Although not every such challenge is automatically an act of sin, many are if they attack the life of the other, or even our own lives. And conversely, we too may be the recipients of emotional violence perpetrated by others against us. 6. Sins are Sexual. A specific area where sins of action can occur is the sphere of sexuality. This is by no mean to say that sexuality is sin as such or that sexual acts as such are acts of sin. It is also not the case that the heterosexual acts are moral by default and homosexual acts are not. In terms of the ontology of sin and sins, all sexual acts are equal. Nonetheless, ethically, any sexual act may be an act of sin if it is directed against the destruction of a human being and his or her life. 7. Sins are Ecclesial. The power of sin is potentially active in all spheres of being. This means that even the Christian church is not excluded from acts of sin. These can take many forms and may include sins in the realm of the personal, psychological, financial, structural, social and all other levels.

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An ontological-existential understanding of sin provides a most sobering insight that even the Christian church – as no other human community – can be without sin. It is asked to be holy, but it cannot be sinless.

3.12 Conclusion In this chapter we have examined the Pauline understanding of sin and sins – and determined the proper correlation between these distinct and yet interrelated realities. We must also conclude that the existentiality of sin as a power establishes that any reflection on sin in the Christian tradition occupies the default starting point of the metanarrative that seeks to formulate the answer. The term metanarrative is understood here as the existential bracket within which all life must be – indeed only can be – understood and made intelligible. This is to say that sin is the metanarrative against which all other discourses (christology, soteriology) and sub-discourses (ethics) must be conducted and understood because sin as an ontological category (Existenzial) precedes all discourses in the same way that being has priority over thinking. A case in point, how an existential metanarrative of sin emerges in one’s daily experiences is the reminiscence of Jean-Paul Sartre during the second world war. Shortly after the war, he recapitulates: “we have been taught to take Evil seriously… Dachau and Auschwitz have all demonstrated to us that Evil is not an appearance, that knowing its cause does not dispel it, that it is not opposed to Good as a confused idea is to a clear one, that it is not the effect of passions which might be cured, of a fear which might be overcome, of a passing aberration which might be excused, of an ignorance which might be enlightened, that it can in no way be diverted, brought back, reduced, and incorporated into idealistic humanism… Therefore, in spite of ourselves, we came to this conclusion, which will seem shocking to lofty souls: Evil cannot be redeemed.”121 Barret slightly expands the last sentence and puts it in these words: “evil is real and cannot be redeemed.”122 Evil is real – it has its own ontology with its own inherent structures. This is precisely the point of our investigation of sin in Paul. Sartre employs the word “evil” for what we describe as sin. The two terms are equivalent in that both aim at nothing less than the destruction of life. If it is the 121  Sartre

in What is Literature (1947), cited in William Barrett, Irrational Man. A Study in Existential Philosophy. New York: Anchor Books 1990, 240. 122 Barrett, Irrational Man. A Study in Existential Philosophy, 247.

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case as Sartre boldly posits, namely that evil and sin cannot be redeemed, then how can there be any hope for humanity? The answer is that all forms of Christian discourse – from the life and teachings of Jesus and Paul to all subsequent interpretations of their lives and teachings – must be correlated in one way or another to answer the questions posed by the existential plight of the metanarrative of sin and evil deeds. In the chapters that follow, we are now ready to discuss how the answer to the human dilemma thus defined must look like. The question before us is how in a broad soteriological context we must understand along with the apostle Paul the role of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah. What did Jesus accomplish vis-à-vis sin and sins and how do human beings take hold of his accomplishment ontologically and ontically?

Chapter 4

Messiah, Sin and Torah The redemptive event is not the life but rather the death of Christ Emil Fackenheim1

4.1  Jesus the Messiah Now that we have determined that in Paul we may understand the primary human predicament as sin, understood as an ontological-existential category (Existenzial) and related to it, but in a secondary manner, the committing of sins, we are therefore confronted by the question of how such a predicament may be overcome. The very short answer is that Jesus of Nazareth has something to do with it, in particular his death and resurrection. If this would be otherwise, there would simply be no Christian tradition. But the real challenge lies in the details. That said, one of the most difficult questions to resolve both in terms of scholarly debate and the congregational life of the Christian church is the role of Jesus of Nazareth, the resurrected Messiah. Precisely when it comes to the question of why Jesus lived and died, there exists much confusion and a great lack of clarity. I am not saying this to set up a cheap straw argument, or to invalidate good scholarship, or to pretend that I know all the answers. Not at all. My claim is far more modest, though fervent, and pivots crucially around my understanding of Paul’s theological thinking. As has already become apparent, my thesis is that if we believe that “Jesus came to die for my sins,” as many Christians and even scholars maintain, then we have at best grossly trivialized the heartbeat of the Christian faith and at worst misunderstand basic Christian theology. Or, to put it even more pointedly: we have seriously misunderstood Jesus the Messiah. As we saw already in our discussion so far, the distinction between sin and 1  Emil L. Fackenheim, The Religious Dimension in Hegel’s Thought. Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press 1967, 141.

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sins is paramount for our understanding of Paul, and by extension for all Christian doctrine; its full weight comes to bear on how we must understand the life, death and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah. If Jesus is indeed the “answer,” as Christians believe, then his life is crucially related to the “question,” the issue of the human predicament, namely sin and sins. When it comes to the exegetical intricacies and theological details, the task can indeed be daunting. How can we make reasonable the meaning of terminology such as redemption, reconciliation, salvation, atonement, propitiation, (penal) substitution, ransom, justification, participation, vicarious death, blood, sacrifice and the interconnectedness and correlation of these terms? The table below lists some of these key terms in Paul vis-à-vis the New Testament. ἁμαρτία ἀπολύτρωσις ἄφεσις ἁμαρτωλός αἷμα πίστις καταλλαγή θάνατος δικαιοσύνη νόμος θυσία σωτηρία

7 Authentic Pauline Letters 59 3 0 6 8 91 4 45 50 118 4 14

Entire NT 66 10 17 47 97 243 4 120 92 194 28 46

Occurrence of Key Pauline Terms

All these terms are in one way or another brought into the debate to solve the question of Jesus’ death. The one term employed with the highest Pauline statistical frequency after καταλλαγή (100 %) is ἁμαρτία (89.4 %). This is a striking point. But even more surprizing is the further fact that of the total of 59 occurrences in Paul, 52 times are employed in the singular. So why does Paul emphasize that one word in the singular to such a great extent? Surely, these terms play a role in describing an aspect of the death of Jesus, but exactly in what way? And most important, what is their pertinence in overcoming sin? Building on our premise that there is a vast difference between sin and sins, we will now try to focus on the death of Jesus in view

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of what his death was able to achieve and what it was not able to accomplish. Here we will examine both Pauline and New Testament texts before we will focus more narrowly in the next two chapters on Pauline soteriology. But can we even assume that Jesus was the Messiah? Without attempting to review the debate about Jewish Messianism 2 and the Christian development that pronounced Jesus of Nazareth the Messiah for Israel and all humanity, let us merely record that the early Christian church, including a large number of New Testament witnesses and post-biblical literature of the first two centuries, assume that Jesus was the Messiah. The most explicit reference is in the Gospel of John. In John 1:41 we read that Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, said: “εὑρήκαμεν τὸν Μεσσίαν, ὅ ἐστιν μεθερμηνευόμενον Χριστός (“we have found the Messiah (which is translated Anointed).” The use of the verb μεθερμηνεύω in this context is remarkable. Etymologically, the verb μεθερμηνεύω points to the root “hermeneutic.” Here we have then a lucid indication of the hermeneutical engagement of the early Christians. They had to explain the – at the time not yet fully established – notion of the Messiah around the Hebrew term ‫ ָמִשׁיַח‬and did so via its transliterated form in Greek, namely Χριστός. A second reference we find in John 4:25: λέγει αὐτῷ ἡ γυνή, οἶδα ὅτι Μεσσίας ἔρχεται ὁ λεγό­ μενος Χριστός· ὅταν ἔλθῃ ἐκεῖνος, ἀναγγελεῖ ἡμῖν ἅπαντα. (“The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming (who is called Christ). When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us’”). These two references are a clear indication that by the end of the first century there emerged the view that Jesus of Nazareth was understood in the early Christian communities to have been the Messiah. Did Jesus think of himself as the Messiah? Notwithstanding the debate about the Messianic secret, I am of the view that Jesus himself had at least a rudimentary self-understanding of his being or becoming the Messiah (cf. Luke 4:21–24). Even if he may not have fully associated himself with the promised messianic heir of the Davidic line, I do think that he had minimally a hunch that his life, and especially his death, would have salvific consequences for Israel and beyond. 2  For an overview of Jewish Messianism, see Shemaryahu Talmon, “The Concepts of Māšȋah· and Messianism in Early Judaism,” in James H. Charlesworth (ed), The Messiah. Developments in Earliest Judaism and Christianity. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992, 79–115 and the still relevant discussion of Hans Joachim Schoeps, Paul. The Theology of the Apostle in Light of Jewish Religious History. Translated by Harold Knight. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press 1961, 128–148. See also Magnus Zetterholm, The Messiah: in Early Judaism and Christianity. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007 and Armin D. Baum, Detlef Häusser and Emmanuel L. Rehfeld (eds), Der jüdische Messias Jesus und sein jüdischer Apostel Paulus. WUNT 2/425. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2016.

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4.2  Paul: Apostle of the Messiah Like the gospel writers, the later documents of the New Testament and the early Christian communities, Paul too believed that the man from Nazareth was the Messiah for Jews and Gentiles. Indeed, his commitment to the life under Torah impelled him in an unforeseeable way to be confronted with Jesus of Nazareth. Saul was on the road to the synagogues in Damascus because he believed that his fellow Jews had gone astray in accepting the supposed claim that this man Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah. Acts 9:2 employs the expression “those on the way, men and women” (τινας εὕρῃ τῆς ὁδοῦ ὄντας, ἄνδρας τε καὶ γυναῖκας, cf. Acts 22:4, 24:14, 22) to designate the members of the synagogues who had accepted the coming of the Messiah. According to Acts 26:9, Saul in his speech before Agrippa says: “I myself was convinced that I ought to do many things against the name of Jesus of Nazareth,” presumably because the synagogue members believed in the name of Jesus, namely that he was the Messiah. To that end, in the Lukan account in Acts 9:22 we read that Saul “confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Messiah (ὅτι οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ Χριστός).” Concretely, on the road to Damascus, Paul was called to be an apostle to the Gentiles, but the substance of that calling was that he was an apostle of the Messiah, that is to say, the content of his proclamation was the message about the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth. Indeed, in a very short turn of events, Saul the persecutor of Jesus of Nazareth became the proclaimer of Jesus the Messiah. As Kollmann notes: “Paulus lässt in seinen Briefen keinen Zweifel daran, dass sich für ihn mit dem Damaskuserlebnis eine grund­ legende Neubewertung der Person Jesus Christi verband” (Paul leaves no doubt in his letters that for him the Damascus experience was connected with a fundamental reappraisal of the person of Jesus Christ) and that against the background of a “zeitgenössische Messiaserwartung” (contemporary expectation of the Messiah).3 There is in fact very much evidence in all of Paul’s letters of how he wrestled to work out this new hermeneutic horizon of making intelligible that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah. Paul himself describes retrospectively what happened to him, or at least how he understood his calling, in these terms in Gal. 1:1: Παῦλος ἀπόστολος οὐκ ἀπ᾽ ἀνθρώπων οὐδὲ δι᾽ ἀνθρώπου ἀλλὰ διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ καὶ θεοῦ πατρὸς τοῦ ἐγείραντος αὐτὸν ἐκ νεκρῶν. God called Paul as ἀπόστολος 3  Bernd Kollmann, “Die Berufung und Bekehrung zum Heidenmissionar,” in Paulus Handbuch, 84.

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“through Jesus, Messiah” and then Paul adds that God is the one who also raised the Messiah from the dead. My own view on whether Paul experienced a conversion or a calling on the road to Damascus is that it is the latter.4 At any rate, the takeaway for us is that Paul’s Damascus experience constituted a radical existential reconfiguration of his life, a “radikale Kehrtwende im Leben” (radical turnaround in life) or an “umfassender Seinswandel” (comprehensive change of being), as Kollmann calls it.5 Paul’s Lebenswende (change of life) was Existenzwende (change of existence). What happened to him did not merely change his theology, as if his theology was a mere neutral set of ideas about God, Israel, covenant, Torah, humanity and the world. The Damascus Christophany threw Paul into his most turbulent existential challenge; it was the most far-reaching watershed and perhaps deepest crisis of his life precisely because he encountered the Messiah quite unexpectedly. Paul’s answer was articulated in the form of a theological response, but it was presented, that is lived out, in his everyday existence, namely in his Dasein with his congregations, his many co-workers, his people Israel and the Roman empire. In a language that mimics prophetic calling (cf. Isa. 49:1, 5; Jer. 1:5) Paul recalls in Gal. 1:15–16 that God called him and revealed his son to him (ἀπο­ κα­λύψαι τὸν υἱὸν αὐτοῦ ἐν ἐμοί) so that he would proclaim him (εὐαγ­γε­ λίζωμαι αὐτὸν; the son) among the Gentiles. Earlier in Galatians, Paul had already established in 1:11 that the gospel that was preached by him (τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τὸ εὐαγγελισθὲν ὑπ᾽ ἐμοῦ) did not come to him by human agency or learning, but “through the revelation of Jesus, the Messiah” (ἀλλὰ δι᾽ ἀποκαλύψεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ). Paul thus anchors both his encounter and calling with the Messiah on the road to Damascus and the content of his gospel in the revelation of the Messiah. In other words, because of a divine initiative Paul was called an apostle to the Gentiles to proclaim the gospel of the Messiah. For Paul, a calling as apostle without preaching the Messiah is unimaginable. Even though calling and preaching go together, the first is the foundation for the second. This is evident in 1 Cor. 9:16, where Paul remarks: “If I proclaim the gospel, this gives me no ground for boasting, for an obligation is laid on me, and woe to me if I do not proclaim the gospel!” 4  Although there are arguments in support that Paul experienced a conversion, cf. Klaus Haacker, “Paul’s Life,” in CCSP, 24, namely that we are “justified to speak of ‘conversion’ – as long as it is clear that his was not a conversion from one religion to another.” For a detailed discussion, see Alan Segal, Paul the Convert. The Apostolate and Apostasy of Saul the Pharisee. New Haven: Yale University Press 1988. 5  Kollmann, “Die Berufung und Bekehrung zum Heidenmissionar,” 86 and 91.

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In what way can we maintain that Paul’s gospel was about the Messiah? Given what we said above about the meaning of Χριστός as Messiah, we are justified in substituting the word “Messiah” when we read “Christ” in Paul’s letters. In literally the very first verse of Christian literature, in 1 Thess. 1:1, Paul greets the church in (the name of) God the father and the Lord Jesus, the Messiah (ἐν θεῷ πατρὶ καὶ κυρίῳ Ἰησοῦ Χριστῷ, χάρις ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη). Even in 51 CE, the date stipulated for the composition of 1 Thessalonians, Paul had already reworked his monotheism to include Jesus, the Christ/Messiah. No wonder, then, that his gospel was at the core the message about the Messiah. In 1 Cor. 1:6, Paul addresses the Corinthians and assures them of “the testimony about the Messiah among them” (τὸ μαρτύριον τοῦ Χριστοῦ ἐβεβαιώθη ἐν ὑμῖν). Here Paul speaks of μαρτύριον (“testimony, witness”) rather generally in the sense of communicating information about a matter, of providing a witness about something. But interestingly, the Lutherbibel 2017 translates the expression τὸ μαρτύριον τοῦ Χριστοῦ as an objective genitive “die Predigt von Christus.” The link between the Messiah and proclamation Paul makes only a few verses on. In 1 Cor. 1:23 Paul is specific about the content of his preaching: ἡμεῖς δὲ κηρύσσομεν Χριστὸν ἐσταυρωμένον, Ἰουδαίοις μὲν σκάνδαλον, ἔθνεσιν δὲ μωρίαν (“but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles”). Here we have the first crucial aspect of Paul’s preaching about the Messiah: that he was a crucified man. Any Jew, as Paul himself as a former Pharisee, was convinced to the bone that Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was crucified and thereby cursed by God (cf. Deut. 21:23, 11 QT 64:15–20), was a sacrilegious imposter of the highest order. To preach that this man was the Messiah of Israel and Gentiles alike according to the scriptures, was not only a stumbling block to Jews, but also a blasphemy. Further on in 1 Corinthians, Paul returns to the theme of preaching the Messiah. He notes specifically in 2:1 that he “did not come proclaiming the mystery of God (τὸ μυστήριον τοῦ θεοῦ)” to the Corinthians “in lofty words or wisdom.” The content of the mystery, for Paul (2:2), is that “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified (εἰ μὴ Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν καὶ τοῦτον ἐσταυρωμένον).” In 2 Corinthians, Paul continues to make his case that his calling is to preach the Messiah. In 2 Cor. 1:19 he again links his proclamation with Jesus the Messiah: “for the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you (ὁ τοῦ θεοῦ γὰρ υἱὸς Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς ὁ ἐν ὑμῖν δι᾽ ἡμῶν κηρυχθείς), Silvanus and Timothy and I, was not ‘Yes and No’; but in him it is always ‘Yes’).” And yet again in 2 Cor. 4:5 Paul leaves no doubt whatsoever what his preaching is all

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about: “for we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord (κηρύσσομεν ἀλλὰ Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν κύριον) and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’ sake.” But Paul’s preaching of the Messiah, as God’s mystery, as the crucified one and as Lord would be incomplete would it not be for one crucial fact: the resurrection of the crucified one. In 1 Cor. 15:12 Paul asserts: “now if the Messiah is proclaimed as raised from the dead (εἰ δὲ Χριστὸς κηρύσσεται ὅτι ἐκ νεκρῶν ἐγήγερται),” – the assumption being that Paul himself preached in this manner – then how can some claim that there is no resurrection of the dead as such. For Paul, it goes without saying that a Messiah who was crucified but not resurrected is an impossibility. The entire weight and climax of Paul’s preaching about the Messiah was exactly on the resurrection, and that not only for a good reason, but for an indispensable one. Paul’s ultimate verdict on this point is clear: “if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain” (1 Cor. 15:14), “you are still in your sins (15:17), “then those also who have died in Christ have perished (15:18) and “we are of all people most to be pitied” (15:19). In sum, Paul, called as the apostle to the Gentiles, advances the “proclamation” that Jesus of Nazareth lived, died and was resurrected as the Messiah.

4.3  The Messiah and Forgiveness of Sins Before we turn our attention to Paul in the next chapter, a brief survey of some of the books of the New Testament is in order. In the New Testament, we have the overarching picture that the life of Jesus of Nazareth has at its core a soteriological function. This function is centred on the death of Jesus and its present and future meaning for the early Christians. The life of Jesus, the Christ-Messiah is interpreted within the matrix of sins, forgiveness and the new creation. Various New Testament authors employ distinct expressions and concepts to express this crucial soteriological function. What follows is a succinct survey on the Messiah and sins, so that Paul’s novel view on sin gains sharper relief. Gospels and Acts In the gospels, for example, the birth narratives establish a firm connection between Jesus’ incarnation and the forgiveness of sins. In Matt. 1:21 we

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read that τέξεται δὲ υἱόν, καὶ καλέσεις τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ Ἰησοῦν· αὐτὸς γὰρ σώσει τὸν λαὸν αὐτοῦ ἀπὸ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν αὐτῶν (she will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins”). From the time of his birth, the forgiveness of sins is pronounced as the basic reason for Jesus’ incarnation. It is instructive that the central narrative of early Christian theology – even after Paul had long died, assuming that the gospel of Matthew was written around 90 CE – proclaimed that Jesus came to die for Israel’s, and by extension, the sins of all humanity. Elsewhere in Matthew, in 9:1–6, Jesus has authority on earth to forgive sins (9:6 ἵνα δὲ εἰδῆτε ὅτι ἐξουσίαν ἔχει ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς ἀφιέναι ἁμαρτίας) and in 12:31 we are told that every sin may be forgiven (cf, Mark 2:1–12, Luke 5:17–26, 7:47–49). Then there is the noteworthy verse in Matt 26:28: τοῦτο γάρ ἐστιν τὸ αἷμά μου τῆς διαθήκης τὸ περὶ πολλῶν ἐκχυννόμενον εἰς ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν. Jesus’ shedding of his blood is for the “forgiveness of sins.” This is important because here we have the Matthean community connect Jesus’ blood, his violent death, with the forgiveness of sins. Chro­ nologically, this line of theological reflection follows the teachings of Paul. In other words, it seems curious that even a generation after Paul, the early Christian churches still believed that Jesus’ blood was vicarious for sins! Similarly, in the more elaborate birth narrative of Luke’s gospel, in Zachariah’s prophecy (Luke 1:67–79), salvation (1:69, 71, 77) is linked to John the Baptist’s preparing of Jesus’ way “to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins (ἐν ἀφέσει ἁμαρτιῶν αὐτῶν).”6 At the end of Luke, Jesus himself makes the connection between his life, resurrection and the redemptive effect. In Jesus’ post-resurrection appearance and last discourse before his disciples, Luke narrates (Luke 24:45–48): “Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Messiah (τὸν Χριστὸν) is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins7 is to be 6 

In all the synoptic gospels, John the Baptist preaches repentance and forgiveness of sins; cf. Mark 1:4 ἐγένετο Ἰωάννης [ὁ] βαπτίζων ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ καὶ κηρύσσων βάπτισμα μετανοίας εἰς ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν. Luke 3:3 καὶ ἦλθεν εἰς πᾶσαν [τὴν] περίχωρον τοῦ Ἰορδάνου κηρύσσων βάπτισμα μετανοίας εἰς ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν, Matt 3:6 καὶ ἐβαπτίζοντο ἐν τῷ Ἰορδάνῃ ποταμῷ ὑπ᾽ αὐτοῦ ἐξομολογούμενοι τὰς ἁμαρτίας αὐτῶν. 7  Did Jesus know the difference between sin and sins? There are some indications in the gospels that this may have been the case, but it is difficult to know with certainty. In Luke 5:32 Jesus makes explicit: οὐκ ἐλήλυθα καλέσαι δικαίους ἀλλ’ ἁμαρτωλοὺς εἰς μετάνοιαν. Even though Jesus employs the term “sinners” it is not clear what he had in mind. In John 2:24 we read that “Jesus on his part would not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people 25 and needed no one to testify about anyone; for he himself knew what was in everyone” (αὐτὸς γὰρ ἐγίνωσκεν τί ἦν ἐν τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ). Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel according to John 1-XII. AB 29. New York: Doubleday 1966, 126,

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proclaimed in his name to all nations (καὶ κηρυχθῆναι ἐπὶ τῷ ὀνόματι αὐτοῦ μετάνοιαν εἰς ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν εἰς πάντα τὰ ἔθνη), beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things’.” Luke the evangelist also connects the death of the Messiah (actually employing τὸν Χριστὸν) with “the forgiveness of sins” and that in a universal sense, namely “to all nations.” Continuing the Lucan understanding of the forgiveness of sins in the Book of Acts, the term ἁμαρτία is mentioned eight times, once in the singular (7:60 Stephen’s stoning is termed a sin) and seven times in the plural. The expression εἰς ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν is used five times (2:38, 5:31, 10:43, 13:38, 26:18). Acts reflects the same theology of sin as the synoptic gospels. In all these instances, the context always indicates that forgiveness of sins is tied to Jesus Christ. Sins are deeds or acts that need forgiveness in view of the world to come. Sin as a power over human beings is absent from Acts and appears for the first time, as we saw in chapter 3, in the apostle Paul. The picture is more differentiated in the Fourth Gospel. In the gospel of John there are 17 instances of the word ἁμαρτία, 13 in the singular and 4 in the plural.8 In John 1:29 we read: ἴδε ὁ ἀμνὸς τοῦ θεοῦ ὁ αἴρων τὴν ἁμαρτίαν τοῦ κόσμου (“the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world”). Here we have a striking difference to the synoptic gospels! Whereas the synoptics focus on sin as acts that need forgiveness, the gospel of John begins with the poignant statement that Jesus takes away the sin (singular!) of the world. In a parallel statement in 1 John 3:5 ἵνα τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἄρῃ the reference, however, is to sins in the plural. To be sure, in John 1:29, Jesus is identified as lamb, and thus brought into the sphere of sacrifice that apparently can remove or atone for sin. It is further significant that John does not speak generally of the forgiveness of sins in this context, but of the sin of the world. The term τοῦ κόσμου stands in John for the sinful world (cf. John 3:16); John’s understanding of sin is thus cosmological rather than personal and ethical. The world as a whole needs the liberation from sin. The verb that is used here is αἴρω and not ἀφίημι, the verb that denotes typically the forgiveness of sins. By suggesting the taking away of sin from the world, Johannine theology has advanced a significant step beyond the synoptic gospels and is much closer aligned with Paul. In John 8:21 Jesus says: “I am going away, and you will search for me, but you will die in your sin (καὶ ἐν τῇ ἁμαρτίᾳ ὑμῶν translates John 2:25 in this way “he needed no one to testify about human nature, for he was aware of what was in man’s heart.” 8  For a comprehensive overview of the notion of sin in the Fourth Gospel, see Rainer Metzner, Das Verständnis der Sünde im Johannesevangelium. WUNT 122. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2000.

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ἀποθανεῖσθε). Where I am going, you cannot come.” But in John 8:24, still in the same context, we have a slightly different rendering: “I told you that you would die in your sins (ἀποθανεῖσθε ἐν ταῖς ἁμαρτίαις ὑμῶν), for you will die in your sins (ἀποθανεῖσθε ἐν ταῖς ἁμαρτίαις ὑμῶν) unless you believe that I am he.” This is a telling subtlety. Unless this is merely a sloppy rendering of Jesus’ words by the scribe, or its source, it is noteworthy that in the same context Jesus’ speaks of dying in sin in the singular, ἐν τῇ ἁμαρτίᾳ ὑμῶν, and dying in sins in the plural, ἐν ταῖς ἁμαρτίαις ὑμῶν. It is difficult to ascertain whether the evangelist had a more nuanced understanding of sin and sins, in other words, whether his understanding had theologically developed in the Johannine community more than, for example, in the Matthean community. Moreover, John 8:34 is interesting as it has as well a Pauline ring to it: Ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι πᾶς ὁ ποιῶν τὴν ἁμαρτίαν δοῦλός ἐστιν τῆς ἁμαρτίας (“very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin”). Even though John speaks of sin in the singular as if it is a power (cf. 1:29), here he seems to understand the term ἁμαρτία in a dual sense, namely both as an act and as a power. On the one hand, what does it mean to say ὁ ποιῶν τὴν ἁμαρτίαν if not that “the doer of sin” commits an act of sin?9 However, sin understood as an ontological power cannot be committed, it is “not doable.” And yet, on the other hand, δοῦλός ἐστιν τῆς ἁμαρτίας, seems to suggest precisely that what the author refers to is akin to the Pauline view that the power of sin leads to death. I do not wish to push the double usage of the singular ἁμαρτία too far, but it does seem that the same term carries semantic nuances that have far-reaching theological implications. Even a cursory reading of the gospels indicates that the synoptic gospels portray Jesus as the one who came to forgive sins. Except once (Mt 12:31), the synoptic gospels only use ἁμαρτία in the plural to indicate forgiveness of sins. They are fully committed to an understanding of the dynamic of sin as being that of specific deeds that can and may be forgiven. As such, the synoptic gospels do not address the issue of sin as a power. The emphasis is on Jesus’ salvific death and resurrection and the effect this divine act had on the forgiveness of Israel’s sins. But in the gospel of John, we have a first glimpse toward a more Paulinesque interpretation of sin in that the deeds of sin are no longer the exclusive intention of the forgiveness an9  There is some ambiguity regarding John 9:41: εἰ τυφλοὶ ἦτε, οὐκ ἂν εἴχετε ἁμαρτίαν· νῦν δὲ λέγετε ὅτι Βλέπομεν· ἡ ἁμαρτία ὑμῶν μένει (“if you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains”). In Jesus’ response to the Pharisees, it is difficult to determine whether the use of ἁμαρτία refers to sin as a deed or as a power.

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nounced by Jesus. Here we have indications that sin may in fact be the power that enslaves the cosmos, including all humanity. At any rate, a significant upshot of the four gospels is that we never encounter the expression “the forgiveness of sin!” If sin is indeed an enslaving ontological power, then it is impossible to be forgiven. Other New Testament Writings Of the 17 occurrences of ἄφεσις in the New Testament, eight occur in the gospels, five in Acts, two in the pseudo-Pauline epistles Ephesian and Colossians and two in Hebrews. It is bewildering that Paul never uses the term ἄφεσις! Each of these instances also emphasize the salvific effect of Jesus’ death. Eph. 1:7, for example, asserts that “in him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace” (ἐν ᾧ ἔχομεν τὴν ἀπολύτρωσιν διὰ τοῦ αἵματος αὐτοῦ, τὴν ἄφεσιν τῶν παραπτωμάτων, κατὰ τὸ πλοῦτος τῆς χάριτος αὐτοῦ). This is a condense verse. Here we have the key ideas of redemption, blood, forgiveness and trespasses all crammed into one short verse!10 Traditional ideas such as redemption by means of the spilling of blood for the forgiveness of trespasses, understood as sins (as in Col. 1:14), are tied to the Pauline concept of abounding grace. There is a parallel expression in Col. 1:14: ἐν ᾧ ἔχομεν τὴν ἀπολύτρωσιν, τὴν ἄφεσιν τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν (in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins) that also focusses on the forgiveness of sins but does so in the context of the Father rescuing us “from the power of darkness” (ὃς ἐρρύσατο ἡμᾶς ἐκ τῆς ἐξουσίας τοῦ σκότους) in Col. 1:13. In the next chapter of Colossians, the notion that Jesus’ death is connected to human sins is expressed in these terms. “God, who raised him [Jesus] from the dead” (Col. 2:12), and because the Colossians “were dead in trespasses (ὑμᾶς νεκροὺς ὄντας [ἐν] τοῖς παραπτώμασιν)” (Col. 2:13) were also “made… alive together with him” namely by God, “when he forgave us all our trespasses (χαρισάμενος ἡμῖν πάντα τὰ παραπτώματα), erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross” (Col. 2:14). Even though the term ἄφεσις is not employed here, the intention of the passage is unequivocal: the death and resurrection of Jesus are tied to the forgiveness of trespasses, the acts of sin. 10  Cf. Rudolf Schnackenburg, Der Brief an die Epheser. EKK 10. Zurich: Benzinger Verlag 1982, 54, who notes that the reference to the blood of Jesus is “breit gestreut im Urchristentum und darf als Topos der urchristlichen Katechese gelten” (widely distributed in early Christianity and may be regarded as a topos of early Christian catechesis).

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There are two instances in Hebrews where the term is ἄφεσις used. Heb. 9:22 explains that “indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood (ἐν αἵματι πάντα καθαρίζεται κατὰ τὸν νόμον,), and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins” (καὶ χωρὶς αἱματεκχυσίας οὐ γίνεται ἄφεσις). Once more here we find a correlation between the new covenant, the Messiah and his blood that purifies and somehow effectuates the forgiveness of sins. The Greek text only states forgiveness but omits “of sins.” The context makes it however clear that this is the intended meaning.11 A few verses earlier, in Heb. 9:15, we read that “a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions under the first covenant” (εἰς ἀπολύτρωσιν τῶν ἐπὶ τῇ πρώτῃ διαθήκῃ παραβάσεων). Furthermore, in the context of Jesus being the high priest, Heb 10:12 says: “but when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins (οὗτος δὲ μίαν ὑπὲρ ἁμαρτιῶν προσενέγκας θυσίαν εἰς τὸ διηνεκὲς), ‘he sat down at the right hand of God,’ … 17 he also adds, ‘I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds (τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν αὐτῶν καὶ τῶν ἀνομιῶν αὐτῶν) no more.’ 18 Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin (ὅπου δὲ ἄφεσις τούτων, οὐκέτι προσφορὰ περὶ ἁμαρτίας).” In typical language reminiscent of the book of Hebrews, here too we have the intricate combination of ideas that present Jesus as the sole sacrifice effectuating the forgiveness of sins. The letter of 1 John pretty much repeats the theme that Jesus’ death is tied to the forgiveness of sins. The author does not employ the noun ἄφεσις or a cognate form, but the intention is all the same. 1 John 2:1–2 asserts: “but if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world” (καὶ ἐάν τις ἁμάρτῃ, παράκλητον ἔχομεν πρὸς τὸν πατέρα Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν δίκαιον· καὶ αὐτὸς ἱλασμός ἐστιν περὶ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν, οὐ περὶ τῶν ἡμετέρων δὲ μόνον ἀλλὰ καὶ περὶ ὅλου τοῦ κόσμου). Jesus, the Messiah, is not only the one who effectuates the “atoning sacrifice” (ἱλασμός) for our sins in the first place, but functions as the advocate as we continue to sin while on earth. It is telling here that the author specifically emphasizes the universality of such an act by including “the sins of the whole world.” Finally, in typical Johannine fashion, the author connects God’s loving sending of his son (cf. John 3:16) with the son’s bringing about forgiveness 11  Harold Attridge, The Epistle to the Hebrews. A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews. Hermeneia Commentaries. Philadelphia: Fortress Press 1989, 259, notes that forgiveness of sins must be implied from the larger context of Hebrews. The emphasis in this verse is on the sprinkling of blood (αἱματεκχυσία is a neologism) for remission of sins.

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of sins. In the words of 1 John 4:10: “In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins” (ἐν τούτῳ ἐστὶν ἡ ἀγάπη, οὐχ ὅτι ἡμεῖς ἠγαπήκαμεν τὸν θεόν, ἀλλ’ ὅτι αὐτὸς ἠγάπησεν ἡμᾶς καὶ ἀπέστειλεν τὸν υἱὸν αὐτοῦ ἱλασμὸν περὶ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν). The last phrase ἱλασμὸν περὶ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν is an identical repetition of 1 John 2:2. The new element here is that the son’s effectuating the forgiveness of sins is tied to the Father sending his son out of his love. As the above discussion showed, it is virtually impossible to refute that the entire New Testament sees in Jesus’ death an act that is inseparably tied to the forgiveness of sins. In this regard, it must be said that nowhere in the New Testament do we find the expression “the forgiveness of sin.” Forgiveness is always of sins (plural), but never of sin (singular). On a personal note, this crucial insight on sin vs. sins came to me via Dietrich Bonhoeffer rather than Pauline scholarship. When Bonhoeffer was the director of the underground seminary in Finkenwalde, he offered a seminar on Paul. The manuscript for that event is lost, but a significant note comes from his friend and later biographer Eberhard Bethge. Bethge notes that regarding “sin,” “sins” and “forgiveness of sins” “there is a difference between singular and plural.” And then he adds the remarkable line: “usage of the concept – never ἄφεσις ἁμαρτίας [‘forgiveness of sin’].”12 At any rate, given the fact that there is a vast difference between sin and sins, as we worked out in detail already in the previous chapter, we must now address the question of the atonement. How can we maintain that Jesus’ death and the forgiveness of sins are an atoning event? Can forgiveness even function as atonement? Who, and what, is in need of atonement and how so? What does Paul say?

4.4  Interpreting the Death of Jesus One of the most significant exegetical and theological questions in the Christian tradition is the question of the meaning of Jesus’ death.13 To repeat the question as Wedderburn frames it: what “is the nature of this hu12  Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Theological Education Underground: 1937–1940. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English 15). Edited by Victoria J. Barnett. Translated by Victoria J. Barnett, Claudia D. Bergmann, Peter Frick, Scott A. Moore and Douglas W. Stott. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2012, 344, note 3. 13  For a good survey, see Cilliers Breytenbach, “Interpretationen des Todes Christi,” in Paulus Handbuch, 321–331. Cf. N. T. Wright, Pauline Perspectives. Essays on Paul 1978–2013. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2013, 366–378.

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man predicament that it can supposedly be dealt with by the death of one individual? And what is the nature of the God who requires that it be dealt with in this way?”14 That singular event is emphasized perhaps more than any other one, both in terms of the space allotted in Jesus’ biography in the gospel passion narratives and as the theological quandary dominating the letters of Paul and the rest of the New Testament writings. There is good reason why the death of Jesus is so central: the entire weight of the Christian faith hinges on the meaning of this death. Even more, either Jesus’ life, death and resurrection are the sure foundation of the elaborate Christian house, so to speak, or else the entire structure will collapse. There is, in effect, no middle ground that could sort of save the day when the foundation starts to crack. Our task now it to examine what atonement can and cannot mean. Atonement: Yes or No? The question of the meaning of atonement15 is enormous. The scholarly debate16 on this issue is so vast that all we can do here is to clarify some of the key elements of this debate in relation to our quest of understanding Paul. As with so many themes in Pauline studies, there is no lack of diverging positions on what atonement means in Paul. To illustrate this point, we 14  Alexander J. M. Wedderburn, The Death of Jesus. Some Reflections on Jesus-Traditions and Paul. WUNT 299. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2013, X. 15  The English term “atonement” (German: Sühne, French: expiation, Spanish: expiación) traditionally renders the Greek term ἀπολύτρωσις. More recently this term is translated into English as redemption. The question of atonement is of course not unique to the New Testament. The difficulty of understanding and translating of what needs atonement and forgiveness can already be seen in the Hebrew Bible. Ps. 103:3 can serve as a good example to illustrate how Bible translators have difficulty translating: ‫“( ַהֹסֵּ֥ל ַח ְלָכל־ֲעֹוֵ֑נִכי‬who forgives all your iniquity” NRSV). Here is a small array of translations from various languages. The LXX (Ps. 102:3) translates, “τὸν εὐιλατεύοντα πάσαις ταῖς ἀνομίαις σου,” and then there are many divergent modern translations: “who forgives all your sins” (NIV), “who forgives all your iniquity” (ESV), “who forgives all your iniquities” (NKJV), “der dir all deine Sünden vergibt” (Lutherbibel 1912), “der dir all deine Sünde vergibt” (Lutherbibel 1984, 2017), “der dir alle deine Sünden vergibt” (Schlachter 2000), “der dir alle deine Schuld vergibt” (Einheitsübersetzung 2016) “él perdona todos tus pecados” (NVI), “él es quien perdona todas tus iniquidades” (La Biblia Textual), “egli perdona tutte le tue colpe” (Nuova Riveduta 2006). 16  For a concise overview see Thomas R. Yoder-Neufeld, Killing Enmity. Violence and the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic 2011, 73–96, the chapter on “Atonement and the Death of Jesus.” See also C. M. Tuckett, “Atonement in the NT,” ABD 1, 518–522. RGG4

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may refer to two recent publications, one promoting the traditional view, the other posing a profound challenge. The first position is that of Simon Gathercole, the second of David Brondos. In his book Defending Substitution,17 Gathercole “aims to argue that Christ’s death for our sins in our place, instead of us, is in fact a vital ingredient in the biblical (in the present discussion) understanding of atonement.”18 For Gathercole, the hallmark of atonement is in substitution. The death of Jesus was for us, in our place. Jesus accomplished something for us that would otherwise elude every human being. “In other words,” Gathercole maintains, “what will be argued in this book is that when Christ died bearing our sins or guilt or punishment, he did so in our place and instead of us.”19 This position is supported by Martin Luther, Karl Barth and a host of older and recent scholars. Brondos takes issue with the position advocated by Gathercole and so many others. In his book Paul on the Cross,20 Brondos set out to deconstruct “theories of atonement” because Paul “never employs terms such as satisfaction, substitution, and representation in relation to Christ’s death nor speaks explicitly of Christ’s undergoing divine judgement, suffering the penalty or consequences of human sin, exhausting God’s wrath, or healing our fallen humanity.”21 Such views have only “led to a misreading of Paul.”22 A more correct reading for Brondos is thus that “for Paul, Jesus’ death did not save anyone or reconcile anyone to God; it did not have redemptive ‘effects’.” Moreover, “while Paul regarded Jesus’ death as sacrificial, he did not teach that it expiated sins, propitiated God, or exhausted God’s wrath at sin, or that human sin was judged, taken away, or atoned for on the cross.”23 If Brondos’ claims are correct, then what did Jesus’ death signify and what does Paul teach about it? Brondos remarks that “what Paul did teach is that by means of Christ’s death God has saved and redeemed human beings and has reconciled them to himself.”24 He goes on to assert nonethe17 Simon

J. Gathercole, Defending Substitution. An Essay on Atonement in Paul. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic 2015. 18 Gathercole, Defending Substitution, 14. 19 Gathercole, Defending Substitution, 17. 20  David A. Brondos, Paul on the Cross. Reconstructing the Apostle’s Story of Redemption. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2006. For a philosophical reflection on the idea of a divine-human intervention, see Emmanuel Levinas, Entre Nous. On Thinking-ofthe-Other, translated by Michael B. Smith and Barbara Harshav. New York: Columbia University Press 1998, 53–60, his lecture on “A Man-God”? 21 Brondos, Paul on the Cross, ix. 22 Brondos, Paul on the Cross, ix. 23 Brondos, Paul on the Cross, x. 24 Brondos, Paul on the Cross, x.

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less that “for Paul, Jesus’ death is certainly salvific and redemptive, but not in itself, and not through any ‘effects’ it has. Rather, it is salvific and redemptive only in that it forms part of a story.”25 What Brondos envisions as the story in not merely a “narrative” approach to reading Paul, but “essentially the same simple story we find in the Synoptic Gospels and Acts.” That story “is salvific because God responded to Jesus’ faithfulness unto death in seeking the redemption of others by raising him so that all the divine promises of salvation might now be fulfilled through him.”26 To navigate between these positions, we will now look at some of the basic claims concerning the issue of atonement and then assess Paul’s own statements vis-à-vis our baseline that sin is an ontological power. What Does the Messiah Atone? 1. Jesus’ Death: Atonement for Sins. Above we discussed the gospel passages and other New Testament writings that correlate the Messiah with the forgiveness of sins. There can simply be no dispute that virtually all biblical writers held to the view that Jesus’ death is an atoning death for human sins (plural). This is a most consistently held scholarly27 and lay view, although as we have seen, this view does have its distractors, recently for example Brondos. But what about Paul? Usually there are two Pauline passages that are cited and discussed in support of Paul’s position that Jesus’ death was atoning for sins. The first passages advanced in support of Paul’s view of Jesus’ atoning death is 1 Cor. 15:3–4: “For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, 4 and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures” (παρέδωκα γὰρ ὑμῖν ἐν πρώτοις, ὃ καὶ παρέλαβον, ὅτι Χριστὸς ἀπέθανεν ὑπὲρ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν κατὰ τὰς γραφὰς 4 καὶ ὅτι ἐτάφη καὶ ὅτι ἐγήγερται τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῇ τρίτῃ κατὰ τὰς γραφὰς).28 These two verses offer a compact mini-christology lecture: Christ, i.e. Messiah, died 25 Brondos,

Paul on the Cross, xi. Paul on the Cross, xi. 27  Representative is, for example the study by Martin Hengel, The Atonement. A Study of the Origins of the Doctrine in the New Testament. London: SCM 1981. 28 Not surprizing, Gathercole, Defending Substitution, 55–79, devotes an entire chapter arguing that in this passage Paul advocates a substitutionary view of atonement. The passage is also discussed by Brondos, Paul on the Cross, 112–122. For a good discussion of the possible tradition underlying 1 Cor. 15:1–7 and Rom. 3:25, see Wedderburn, The Death of Jesus, 111–124. 26 Brondos,

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(implied on the cross), for human sins, he was buried (because he was truly dead), but raised (back to life) three days later29 – and all of this according to Israel’s scripture. Commentators are quick to point out that here Paul possibly makes use of early Christian tradition (conceivably a christological interpretation of Isaiah 53). The reason is given by the apostle himself when he says: “I handed on to you as of first importance, what I in turn had received” (παρέδωκα γὰρ ὑμῖν ἐν πρώτοις, ὃ καὶ παρέλαβον). The question for us crystallizes as follows: why did Paul include a christological tradition that predates his own theological reflections on the meaning of the death of the Messiah, especially since this tradition seems to advocate a position that is difficult to integrate into Paul’s overarching understanding of Jesus’ death? In short, the question is whether Paul wholeheartedly argued that Jesus’ death was necessary for the forgiveness of sins? The second key Pauline text is Gal. 1:3–4: “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, 4 who gave himself for our sins to set us free from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father” (χάρις ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη ἀπὸ θεοῦ πατρὸς ἡμῶν καὶ κυρίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ 4 τοῦ δόντος ἑαυτὸν ὑπὲρ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν, ὅπως ἐξέληται ἡμᾶς ἐκ τοῦ αἰῶνος τοῦ ἐνεστῶτος πονηροῦ κατὰ τὸ θέλημα τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ πατρὸς ἡμῶν). Similar to 1 Cor. 15:3–4, as many commentators, so also Betz detects in these verses a “christological formula,”30 perhaps one “of the oldest christologies of the New Testament,”31 “which understood Jesus’ death as an expiatory self-sacrifice.”32 Here again Paul uses the untypical plural “sins” which may, according to Betz, be indicative of a “Jewish (Christian) concept of sin,”33 more specifically it may suggest “a pre-Pauline concept of sins as individual transgressions of the Torah.”34 If Betz is correct, then why did Paul include a traditional formula when he may in fact not fully support it?

29  In 1 Cor. 15:17 Paul connects Jesus’ death with his resurrection and the implied forgiveness of sins (εἰ δὲ Χριστὸς οὐκ ἐγήγερται … ἔτι ἐστὲ ἐν ταῖς ἁμαρτίαις ὑμῶν). 30  Hans Dieter Betz, Galatians. A Commentary on Paul’s Letter to the Churches in Galatia. Hermeneia Commentaries. Philadelphia: Fortress Press 1979, 41. 31 Betz, Galatians, 42. 32 Betz, Galatians, 41. 33 Betz, Galatians, 42, note 55. I agree with Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, A Comparison of Patterns of Religion. Philadelphia: Fortress Press 1977, 466, “that Paul, in thinking of the significance of Christ’s death, was thinking more in terms of a change of lordship which guarantees future salvation than in terms of the expiation of past transgression.” 34 Betz, Galatians, 42.

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Our only recourse is the hermeneutical speculation that Paul’s understanding of sin vs. sins underwent theological development and that he arrived at the conclusion after he composed Galatians. His new and mature understanding would be the position he expressed in Rom. 5–7.35 At any rate, Betz also points out that the reference to “the present evil age” in Gal. 1:4 brings Paul closer to his “concept of the demonic power of ‘sin’”36 from which humanity must be liberated. How, then, do we evaluate the claim, seemingly supported by Paul, even if with hesitation, that Jesus’ death atones for individual sins? – Even if we would concede, for the sake of the argument, that Jesus’ was incarnated, died and was raised from the dead exclusively for “the forgiveness of sins,” we would still be faced with the question of what happens to the enslaving power of sin. In other words, and again for the sake of the argument only, if Jesus would have only died for the forgiveness of sins, we would have only solved half of the problem because the greater issue of the power of sin remains unaddressed, nonetheless. – If Jesus’ death atones only for sins, the deeds committed on the basis of our evil inclination, was it then really necessary for Jesus to die in the first place? Second Temple Judaism was well equipped for the atoning of sins. During the time of Jesus and Paul, the Temple was the centre for such an undertaking on a nearly daily basis up to 70 CE. What could Jesus’ death have added to the atoning of sins that was not already sufficiently and effectively practiced by means of the priestly service (Exodus 30:10; Lev. 5:5, 10, 13, 16, 18)? The Day of Atonement and Pharisaic traditions (in the form of both the written and oral Torah) were established well enough that it poses a serious question of what Jesus’ death could have added that was not already provided for? This is no small issue. – Let me repeat the key issue here: if Jesus died only, or even principally, for the forgiveness of sins, what then is the new and extra element in his death that was not already covered by the cultic remission of sins at the Temple and in accordance with Pharisaic and priestly Torah prescriptions? What, specifically, was the added new element in Jesus’ death that completed what was lacking otherwise? – If we push the above point to the extreme, we are forced to conclude that it was superfluous for Jesus to undergo all the suffering he did and die violently. If forgiveness of sins would have been the only, or even the main 35 

But even in Rom. 4:25 Paul says that Jesus “was handed over to death for our trespasses” (ὃς παρεδόθη διὰ τὰ παραπτώματα ἡμῶν). Cf. Col. 1:13. 36 Betz, Galatians, 42.

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reason for Jesus to be incarnated, then those who believe in him would be – to take Paul’s words out of context – “most to be pitied” (1 Cor. 15:19). Even more, the charge that Jesus’ crucifixion constitutes some form of divine child abuse could not simply be pushed aside. – Even if it could be possible for a person not to commit any act of sin at all – it is of course not possible: moral perfectionism is an illusion and self-deception – it still remains the case that the prime human predicament, sin as a power, goes unresolved. In other words, even if every single act of sin would be atoned for by Jesus’ death, the person whose sins are all forgiven remains a sinner. 2. Jesus’ Death: A Sacrifice. Ernst Käsemann is correct when he points out that Paul “never definitively called Jesus’ death a sacrifice.”37 Paul employs the term θυσία only four times and never in a christological context (cf. Rom. 10:1, 1 Cor. 10:18, Phil. 2:17, 4:18). Nonetheless, when we read notions like the one expressed in Rom. 5:9: πολλῷ οὖν μᾶλλον δικαιωθέντες νῦν ἐν τῷ αἵματι αὐτοῦ σωθησόμεθα δι᾽ αὐτοῦ ἀπὸ τῆς ὀργῆς (“since, therefore, we are now justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God), it is hard to avoid the impression that Paul thought of Jesus’ death as an efficacious action that was somehow analogous to animal sacrifices in the temple cultic practices. That this view was part of the early Christian tradition, even two or three generations after the death of Jesus of Nazareth, can be seen for example in Heb. 5:1: “every high priest chosen from among mortals is put in charge of things pertaining to God on their behalf, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins” (ἵνα προσφέρῃ δῶρά τε καὶ θυσίας ὑπὲρ ἁμαρτιῶν) or Heb. 2:17 where the author describes Jesus as “a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people” (εἰς τὸ ἱλάσκεσθαι τὰς ἁμαρτίας τοῦ λαοῦ).38 The same idea, that the blood of Christ has a redeeming quality for the forgiveness of sins is also expressed in Rev. 1:5: “and 37  Ernst Käsemann, Perspectives on Paul. Philadelphia: Fortress Press 1971, 43. N. T. Wright, Pauline Perspectives. Essays on Paul 1978–2013. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2013, 111, speaks strangely of “the sin-offering in [Rom.] 8.3” that is, in his view, “exactly suited to the plight outlined in [Rom.] 7.13–20. The sin-offering was designed to deal with sins that were committed either in ignorance or unwillingly; and that, Paul has said, is exactly the sort of sin of which Israel is here guilty.” In my opinion, there is a lack of clarity between, sin, sins and the idea that Jesus’ death is an offering. 38  Heb. 13:20 speaks of “the blood of the eternal covenant.” On covenant and atonement, see Michael J. Gorman, The Death of the Messiah and the Birth of the New Covenant: A (Not So) New Model of the Atonement. Eugene: Cascade Books 2014. See also Peter Stuhlmacher, “Jesu Opfergang,” in: Kuhn (ed), Gespräch über Jesus, 63–85.

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from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead (πρωτότοκος τῶν νεκρῶν), and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood” (τῷ ἀγαπῶντι ἡμᾶς καὶ λύσαντι ἡμᾶς ἐκ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν ἐν τῷ αἵματι αὐτοῦ). Similar to the conviction throughout almost all of the New Testament writings that the death of Jesus is in relation to the forgiveness of sins, so likewise is the belief, it seems, that the death of Jesus is a sacrifice that required the shedding of his blood.39 In Paul we have this unique reference to blood in Rom. 3:25 where the apostle speaks of Jesus “whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed” (ὃν προέθετο ὁ θεὸς ἱλαστήριον διὰ [τῆς] πίστεως ἐν τῷ αὐτοῦ αἵματι εἰς ἔνδειξιν τῆς δικαιοσύνης αὐτοῦ διὰ τὴν πάρεσιν τῶν προγεγονότων ἁμαρτημάτων).40 Unlike Käsemann, Gathercole insists that Jesus’ death in Romans must be understood as a sacrifice, even though the term θυσία is not employed directly. He argues that the references to blood and the implication that the shedding of blood leads to death, and moreover the presence of the term ἱλαστήριον in this context, are enough to establish that here we can safely say “that the death of Christ is seen as a divinely ordained means of atonement.”41 To make his case, Gathercole asserts that “Christ’s death is punitive”42 and “death is by definition a penalty.”43 The first assertion holds that human sins incite God’s wrath, and “that Christ’s death is punitive precisely in the sense that he bore the act of divine condemnation of sin in his own death,”44 in the place of human beings. In a sense Gathercole endorses a version of Anselm’s Satisfaction Theory in Cur Deus Homo. We as human beings have become guilty before God because of our sins, and it is incumbent on us to make restitution. But we unable to render to God what would satisfy him. But if satisfaction was to avail for sinners, it had to be offered by a human being. Thus, only a di39 

Cf. other references to Jesus’ blood: 1 Peter 1:19 notes that we were redeemed “with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish.” Col. 1:20 says: “making peace through the blood of his cross” and 1 John 5:6: “this is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with the water only but with the water and the blood.” Similarly, 1 John 1:7 asserts that “the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin” (καὶ τὸ αἷμα Ἰησοῦ τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ καθαρίζει ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ πάσης ἁμαρτίας). 40  Cf. Simon J. Gathercole, “Justified by Faith, Justified by his Blood: The Evidence of Romans 3:21–4:25,” in Donald A. Carson et al (eds), Justification and Variegated Nomism, vol.  2, 147–184. 41  Gathercole, “Justified by Faith,” 178. 42  Gathercole, “Justified by Faith,” 178. 43  Gathercole, “Justified by Faith,” 179. 44  Gathercole, “Justified by Faith,” 179.

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vine-human being could satisfy God’s indignation and return the honor due to him. If Jesus’ death is, moreover, also understood to be a sacrifice of propitiation, it follows that Jesus’ death has appeased the wrath of God and thus averted the deadly consequence that God would have otherwise enacted on the sinner. Much has been written on these things and there is no need for me to survey the literature. Suffice to say that I follow Otfried Hofius, who in turn is dependent on his colleague Hartmut Gese,45 both my teachers at Tübingen. Hofius rejects the view that Jesus’ death was satisfactory and propitiatory sacrifice. In his assessment, such a position represents “ein fundamentals Missverständnis”46 (a fundamental misunderstanding) of Paul’s theological thinking. Hofius clarifies that “weder bei Paulus selbst noch auch in einer anderen Schrift des Neuen Testaments finden sich ‘Theorien von dem ein blutiges Versöhnungs-Opfer fordernden Gott (neither in Paul nor in any other writing of the New Testament do we find a ‘theory of a God who requires a bloody sacrifice for redemption’).47 I agree with Hofius48 that the apostle Paul does not teach that God was insulted in honor and infuriated by human acts of sin, and therefore sent his own Son, to rectify what the sinners were unable to accomplish in the first place. Gathercole’s second assertion, that “death is by definition a penalty,”49 is closely correlated to the first one, namely that Christ’s death is punitive. If the sinner is culpable before God, and the ultimate consequence of being a sinner is death (cf. Rom. 5:12, 17, 21; 6:16, 23) inflicted by God as a penalty, then it follows, according to Gathercole, that Christ’s substitutionary death can be understood “by definition as a penalty.”

45 Cf. Hartmut Gese, Hartmut. “Die Weisheit, der Menschensohn und die Ursprünge der Christologie als kosequente Entfaltung der biblischen Theologie,” in Gese, Alttestamentliche Studien. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck) 1992, 218–248. 46 Otfried Hofius, “Sühne und Versöhnung. Zum paulinischen Verständnis des Kreuzestodes Jesu,” in Paulusstudien, 33–49, here 35. Hofius also rejects the satisfaction theory on theological grounds, see his “Neutestamentliche Exegese in systematischtheo­logischer Verantwortung,” in Exegetische Studien, 267–281, her 279. On atonement, see, moreover, Hofius, “Erwägungen zur Gestalt und Herkunft des paulinischen Versöhnungsgedanken,” in Paulusstudien, 1–14, Hofius, “‘Gott hat unter uns aufge­r ich­ tet das Wort von der Versöhnung’ (2 Kor 5,19),” in Paulusstudien, 15–32. 47  Hofius, “Sühne und Versöhnung, 35. In his book Defending Substitution, 29–38, Gathercole examines in some detail and quite fairly what he calls the Tübingen-Understanding of Atonement, based largely on Hofius and Gese. 48  To the contrary, Gathercole, “Justified by Faith,” 180, recognizes that this position is “the much-maligned concept of the satisfaction of God’s wrath.” 49  Gathercole, “Justified by Faith,” 179.

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But here our distinction between sin and sins is of decisive significance. As we have worked out in the previous chapter, the power of sin is ontological, not ethical. The end of the power of sin, in Pauline language, the sting, is death. But this death is not a punishment for sins committed by a person. If possible – it is not – that a person never sins, one would still experience death. In other words, death is independent from any act of sin, transgression and guilt, precisely because it is not ethical in nature. A person dies not because of punishment, but because of the ontological structure of Dasein. To repeat, an ontological issue cannot be solved by an ethical or juridical solution. Gathercole is correct, however, in his insistence that sins (plural) are punitive. The reason is simply that an act of sin is something that can and must be forgiven. Sins can be forgiven because they are by nature acts that are transgressions and violations. They are typically ethical mishaps that need to be restored, if that is still possible, and then forgiven (see chapter 7.5). Sins must be forgiven (but curiously, Paul never speaks of the forgiveness of sins, let alone sin) because they also incur guilt and a penalty. The person who commits an act of sin is de facto a wrongdoer and must own up to his/her doing something wrong. But as we noted above, is it then in the first place necessary for Jesus to have lived, suffered, died and be resurrected, just to forgive human sins, and nothing more? Jesus forgave sins during his lifetime; in other words, he did so before he died. Is there more we can and must say? By way of brief summary: – Jesus’ immense suffering, the shedding of his blood, the violent end of his life on a cross50 cannot atone for sin, understood as enslaving power leading to death. Suffering, bleeding and dying are not means for salvation. A sacrifice is not a soteriological means for sin because it does not solve the real issue, the required victory over death.51 – Why then is a sacrifice for sins inadequate and a sacrifice for sin impossible? Because there is no formal correspondence between plight and solution. An ontological problem cannot be solved with an ethical solution. These two categories do not match up to offer a solution. Moreover, a hu50 

On the crucifixion, see the classic study by Martin Hengel, The Cross of the Son of God. London: SCM Press 1976, 93–185. 51  Even all the suffering of Jesus could not overcome the power of sin. Even if in a dramatic heavenly intervention God would have sent a legion of angels who would have taken down the suffering and bleeding Jesus from the cross, such action, too, could not have helped humanity at all. What this means is this: even all the suffering of Jesus, even the cross by itself with all its accompanying pain, blood and shame, could not have been the end point or purpose of Jesus’ earthly life.

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man sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins raises questions of theodicy about the nature of God himself. – A sacrifice by means of blood assumes implicitly that there is an act of guilt worthy of punishment. In the cultic practice of Israel during the Second Temple this was indeed the case. For this reason, sins are often called transgressions against Torah and God; they can and must be corrected and forgiven. The gospels bear witness to this practice in many of the pericopes on Jesus’ life (cf. Mark 2:5; Matt. 9:2; Luke 7:47–48). The assumption underlying transgressions is that people are able to do evil, but they are also able to resist and avoid evil deeds. As Paul himself admitted, “all have sinned” (Rom. 3:23). – More precisely: because all people are under the corrupting power of sin, therefore they commit acts of sin. The enslaving power of sin drives every person to commit sins; no person is exempted from that ontology of our personhood. That is the existentiell element of the existential structure. Committing acts of sin is the consequence of being under the power of sin, and not the reverse, that committing acts of sins will make us a sinner. This sequence is irreversible. 3. Jesus’ Death: Representative and Substitutionary. Despite what we said above, namely that Jesus’ death is not primarily for the atonement of sins nor is it a punitive sacrifice nor a penal punishment to appease the wrath of God, the question still remains why Jesus died. Was Jesus’ death necessary, was it inevitable, was it a moral example like the death of Socrates, was it for all of humanity? In the language of theology, was Jesus’ death really substitutionary and representative? When New Testament texts, including Paul, speak of Jesus “bearing our sins” or Jesus dying “for us,” it is at once obvious that this cannot be understood literally, as if Jesus took upon himself every act of sin committed by every human being throughout history.52 Bondos rightly remarks that it is not the case “as if sins were some type of actual substance or entity that could have been removed” from the sinner “to Christ’s body so as to be borne and carried away by him.”53 In other words, to say that Jesus bore 52  Some

scholars also employ the term “vicarious” or “vicarious representation” to describe Jesus’ death, A definition of vicarious death is summarized by Gregory R. Jenks, Paul and his Mortality. Imitating Christ in the Face of Death. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns 2015, 28: “vicarious death results in the death of an innocent to release another from condemnation. This is fundamentally what lies behind the idea of atonement in Christian theology. Jesus died in the place of all humanity and as a consequence for not his but their sin. He paid the judicial penalty.” 53 Brondos, Paul on the Cross, 115.

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human sins has nothing to do with a kind of substance ontology. Jesus was a person, living during a thirty-year period in a particular geographical, political and religious context. The question is for us how Jesus’ death, from which we are removed in time and space, can have universal efficaciousness in our lives today. How can the historical gap be bridged so that we can genuinely claim that Jesus’ death was “for us?” On this question I come close to Gathercole’s answer.54 For now, it suffices to point out that the appropriation of Jesus’ death for us today is not by a sophisticated theological epistemology but by faith. What faith means in relation to the salvific economy of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection we will have to discuss in detail in chapter 6 below. As a foretaste of that chapter, we may say that the question before us is the difference between what Hofius calls Heilsgeschehen or Heilsereignis (the event of salvation) 55 and Heilsteilhabe (the participation in appropriation of salvation).56 How then do we bridge the gap from us contemporaries to the historically unique death of Jesus? By faith, evoked by the Spirit of God, we accept what we are taught by the word of God, as revealed and recorded in the New Testament. Faith, in short, has the double side of being an intellectual assent to a set of propositions, but even more so the being gripped by the real and transformative presence of God in daily life. The propositional side of faith is the story of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. In this regard, Sanders provides a good summary of how Paul interprets the death of Jesus and why it is representative for us. “The prime significance which the death of Christ has for Paul,” Sanders argues, “is not that it provides atonement for past transgressions (although he holds the common Christian view that it does so), but that, by sharing in Christ’s death, one dies to the power of sin or to the old aeon, with the result that one belongs to God. The transfer is… from one lordship to another. The transfer takes place by participation in Christ’s death.”57 Even though we are not able to participate in Christ’s death in any literal sense, we do so in faith, by opening ourselves up to the power of Christ, or as Sanders put it, the lordship of Christ. Acceptance of the new lordship is the overcoming of the power of

54 Cf. Gathercole, “Justified by Faith,” 161–168, who offers a solid discussion of Paul’s understanding of faith. 55  Cf. Hofius, “Die Auferstehung der Toten als Heilsereignis. Zum Verständnis der Auferstehung in 1 Kor 15,” in Exegetische Studien, 102–131. 56  Cf. Hofius, “Wort Gottes und Glaube bei Paulus,” in Paulusstudien, 148–174, here 173. 57  E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 467–468.

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sin and thus amounts to a transfer of lordship. However, the overcoming of the power of sin and death is in its fulfillment eschatological. In summary: – Just as the crucified and resurrected Messiah did not literally, that is to say substantively or materially, take our sins upon him, so likewise his death for the overcoming of sin does not literally imply that we no longer die or that we are free from the inclination to commit an act of sin. – By faith we accept that the death of Christ meant complete victory over the power of sin and death. By faith Jesus’ death has become representative for us. The Jewish philosopher Emil Fackenheim saw it quite clearly, in his reading of Hegel, that “the redemptive event is not the life but rather the death of Christ.”58 Even more precisely, we may specify that the resurrection of Christ constitutes the redemptive and substitutionary event. But Hegel was correct when he asserted that “the death of God carries in train the ‘death of death’ – the divine resurrection.”59 In the moment of Jesus’ death and resurrection, death itself died. – The substitutionary element in the redemptive drama lies in Jesus’ act of self-giving death for sinners, who by themselves are unable to overcome the power of sin. The representative60 aspect of Jesus death is that just as sin and death entered the cosmos through one person, so the defeat of death in the resurrection was made universal in that the man Jesus of Nazareth broke that enslaving power of death for all humanity and the entire cosmos. 4. Jesus’ Death: A Sign of Divine Love. In the Christian tradition, the verse of all verses that expresses the love of God for the world is of course John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” (οὕτως γὰρ ἠγάπησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν κόσμον, ὥστε τὸν υἱὸν τὸν μονογενῆ ἔδωκεν). When the New Testament speaks of God’s love for the world, it utilizes for the most part either the noun ἀγάπη or the verb ἀγαπάω. In 1 John 4:10 both the noun and the verb are employed, and they relate to both God’s sending his son and the son’s being “the atoning sacrifice” for the forgiveness of sins. 1 John 4:10 declares: “in this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins” (ἐν τούτῳ ἐστὶν ἡ 58 Fackenheim, The Religious Dimension in Hegel’s Thought, 141. Cf. G. W. F. Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, vol.  3, translated by E. B. Spears and J. Burdon Sanderson. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1968, 144. 59 Fackenheim, The Religious Dimension in Hegel’s Thought, 142. 60  Jörg Frey, “Stellvertretung III. Neues Testament,” in RGG 4 , vol.  7, 1709, cautions however that the “precise meaning” of representation (Stellvertretung) is debatable as is the relation between representation and atonement.

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ἀγάπη, οὐχ ὅτι ἡμεῖς ἠγαπήκαμεν τὸν θεὸν ἀλλ᾽ ὅτι αὐτὸς ἠγάπησεν ἡμᾶς καὶ ἀπέστειλεν τὸν υἱὸν αὐτοῦ ἱλασμὸν περὶ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν). In Paul, the classic verse that speaks of the love of God is Rom. 5:8: “but God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us” (συνίστησιν δὲ τὴν ἑαυτοῦ ἀγάπην εἰς ἡμᾶς ὁ θεός, ὅτι ἔτι ἁμαρτωλῶν ὄντων ἡμῶν Χριστὸς ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν ἀπέθανεν). In the strongest possible terms, Paul sets up, or establishes (συνίστησιν) God’s motive for turning towards humanity. God’s own love (τὴν ἑαυτοῦ ἀγάπην) is the reason. As we shall see in the next chapter, in Aristotelian terms, the final reason for God’s acting is his love “for us (εἰς ἡμᾶς).” The “for us” is further defined by Paul in a parallel phrase. Just as the love of God is “for us” so likewise the Messiah died “for us” (ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν). The two “for us” expressions are coupled by the genitive absolute adverbial clause ὅτι ἔτι ἁμαρτωλῶν ὄντων (“while we were sinners”). 61 Here, ὅτι is the structural conjunction of a causal type and connects backward to the love of God and forward to the death of Christ. God’s love is for us because we are sinners; and because we are sinners, Christ died for us. – The double “for us” is a compelling Pauline indication that God is “for us” and he is for us precisely in the death of his son. Underlying Paul’s language “for us” here is unquestionably his conviction that the death of God’s son is not an act isolated from humanity but has direct implications “for us.” In other words, here we have one of the strongest suggestions that Paul does indeed understand the death of Christ as a substitutionary and representative act. – The expression “while we still were sinners” is of extreme significance in the overall scheme of Pauline theology. Here we have a rare instance where Paul actually contends that human beings “are sinners,” employing the adverbial clause ἁμαρτωλῶν ὄντων. The crucial point here is the fact that he did not say that God demonstrated his love for us because “we have sinned,” but because “we are sinners.” This difference is crucial, as we already discussed in chapter 3, but it leads us now to the next point. 5. Jesus’ Death: A Victory over Sin. As just noted, Paul does not say in Rom. 5:8 that God’s love for us is because “we have sinned.” Rather, his insistence that God’s love and Christ’s death are “for us” because “we are sinners,” is of paramount significance. To be sure, Paul can and does also say 61  Paul uses two parallel expression that likewise describe the human condition before the death of Jesus. In Rom. 5:6 he uses the genitive absolute ὄντων ἡμῶν ἀσθενῶν (“while we were still weak”) and in Rom. 5:10 the adverbial clause ἐχθροὶ ὄντες (“while we were enemies”).

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that “all have sinned” (Rom. 3:23) and, as we saw already, that “the Lord Jesus Christ … gave himself for our sins.” (Gal. 1:3–4). But in Rom. 5:8, and previously in Rom. 3:9 he maintains that “we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under the power of sin (ὑφ’ ἁμαρτίαν εἶναι).”62 The distinction between “we are sinners” and “we have all sinned” is established in Paul beyond dispute, as we demonstrated in the previous chapter. What is ultimately at stake in the death of Christ is that it is for us “as sinners.” Said differently, the ultimate reason for Jesus’ death is that it is a victory over the power of sin, hence over death. The victory over sin is primary over the forgiveness of sins. This is by no means to downplay that sins, too, are important, or more precisely, our ability to avoid sins, or to have our sins forgiven. Even though, as we have noted already, the book of Hebrews uses mostly traditional terminology and concepts (sins in the plural) to make intelligible Jesus’ death and its meaning for the early Christians, both Jews and Gentiles. It is thus striking that Hebrews also promotes an understanding of overcoming sin, in addition to speaking of the atonement for sins. The key passage is Heb. 9:25–28. At the beginning of this passage, in verses 25–26 we read the following: “nor was it to offer himself (προσφέρῃ ἑαυτόν) again and again (πολλάκις), as the high priest enters the Holy Place year after year with blood that is not his own (ἐν αἵματι ἀλλοτρίῳ); 26 for then he [Christ] would have had to suffer again and again (πολλάκις παθεῖν) since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once (ἅπαξ) for all at the end of the age to remove sin by the sacrifice of himself (εἰς ἀθέτησιν ἁμαρτίας διὰ τῆς θυσίας αὐτοῦ).” The passage continues in a similar vein. Heb. 9:27–28 reiterates: “and just as it is appointed for mortals to die once (ἅπαξ ἀποθανεῖν), and after that the judgment, 28 so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many (ἅπαξ προσενεχθεὶς εἰς τὸ πολλῶν ἀνενεγκεῖν ἁμαρτίας), will appear a second time, not to deal with sin (χωρὶς ἁμαρτίας), but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.” The context here employs traditional ideas such as offering, blood, priest, sins, death and judgement. But the striking feature is that this same passage also speaks of sin in the singular! Hebrews repeatedly emphasizes the crucial fact that Jesus’ death happened only once. 63 But Paul of course 62  Commentators agree that the proper translation of ὑφ’ ἁμαρτίαν εἶναι is that of being “under the power of sin,” even though the word “power” is absent from the Greek. 63  Cf. 1Peter 3:18: “for Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit” (ὅτι καὶ Χριστὸς ἅπαξ περὶ ἁμαρτιῶν ἔπαθεν, δίκαιος ὑπὲρ ἀδίκων, ἵνα ὑμᾶς προσαγάγῃ τῷ θεῷ, θανατωθεὶς μὲν σαρκὶ ζῳοποιηθεὶς δὲ πνεύματι).

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also knows of this significance. In Rom. 6:10 he explains: “the death he died, he died to sin, once for all” (ὃ γὰρ ἀπέθανεν, τῇ ἁμαρτίᾳ ἀπέθανεν ἐφάπαξ). The uniqueness of Jesus vis-à-vis the high priest lies in exactly the point that the latter has to offer repeated sacrifice for sins, while Christ “appeared once (ἅπαξ) for all… to remove sin (εἰς ἀθέτησιν ἁμαρτίας) by the sacrifice of himself (διὰ τῆς θυσίας αὐτοῦ).” In other words, Hebrews emphasizes quite correctly that Jesus’ death was exclusive and unrepeatable. The one death and the one resurrection from death were sufficient to establish the victory over death, hence the power of sin. The power of sin and death needed to be defeated only once. – It cannot be emphasized enough, and needs constant repetition, that the main purpose of the death of Jesus of Nazareth and the inextricably linked resurrection from death, is the pivot on which the entire Christian faith either stands or falls – nothing less.64 Only in Jesus’ victory over the power of sin, death and eschatological non-being is the immovable anchor of Christian hope. – Even Gathercole’s extensive critique that the position I sketched above does not do full justice to Paul’s understanding of the meaning of the death of Jesus cannot detract from the centrality of overcoming sin as a power. Gathercole charges that “the prejudice, therefore, that Paul is not interested in sins (plural) or acts of transgression … is a mistaken one. As a result, to explicate the atonement overridingly in terms of victory over Sin as a power is one-sided.”65 To the contrary, the dealing with sins as transgressions is important, but it is secondary to Jesus’ defeating of sin and death. Once more: the victory over death is the victory over the power of sin. As such it is a representative victory. But the forgiveness of sins cannot have a defeating (ontological) effect on the power of sin, and therefore death. Even as a sinless person – an impossible feat – sin would still be effective.

4.5  Sin and Torah In congruence with our presupposition that sin is the underlying ontological predicament of all created life and that the life, death and resurrection 64 Fackenheim, The Religious Dimension in Hegel’s Thought, 141, comments that “indeed, Hegel goes so far as to say that the life of Jesus, could it be taken by itself, would differ little in significance from the life of Socrates.” 65 Gathercole, Defending Substitution, 50. For example, he sees J. L. Martyn, Galatians, AB 33A. New Haven: Yale University Press 1997, as a proponent of the mistaken view because of the apocalyptic lens he employs in making Paul intelligible.

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of Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah for all human and cosmic life is the corresponding solution to that predicament, there still remains a further crucial question to be answered. It is the question, given Paul’s background of a Torah-obedient Pharisee, of the purpose and function of Torah in the messianic-salvific unfolding of pre- and post-Easter faith. It is, to be more precise, the question of the degree of soteriological relevance of Torah in the theological thinking of Paul after his Damascus experience. Jesus confirmed Torah without hesitation in Matt. 5:17–18 when he attested: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. 18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.” For the religious leaders, however, Jesus did not fulfill Torah in the way in which they would have liked, that is to say according to their definition and understanding of the mitzvot. Given various gospel passages, Jesus’ debates with the Pharisees did not seem to have changed his self-understanding that he was vigilant to fulfill Torah. 66 But what about Paul? Does he claim like Jesus to fulfil Torah? How does Paul enter the discussion regarding the validity, past and present, of Torah?67 Hofius suggests that Paul was directed in his thinking about Torah in new ways following his Christophany on the road to Damascus. “Paulus denkt nicht von der Tora her auf Christus hin” (Paul does not think from the Torah to Christ), Hofius argues, “er denkt vielmehr von Christus her ganz neu über die Tora – über ihren Auftrag und ihre Funktion – nach. Er blickt nicht vom Gesetz aus auf Christus als das ‘volle’ Heil, sondern von Christus als dem einzigen Heil aus auf die Tora zurück” (but rather he thinks anew from Christ to Torah – about its mission and function. He does not look back from the law to Christ as the ‘full’ salvation, but from Christ to Torah as the only salvation). 68 I agree with Hofius’ basic claim that Paul’s thinking about Torah was mostly retroactive in that the Christophany led him to reconsider retrospectively the purpose and function of Torah, for Jews and Gentiles. But I will add, on hermeneutical grounds, that Paul’s thinking was never linear or one-dimensional in that he only looked back because of his Christophanic experience on the road to Da66  Jesus

not only confirms Torah without restrictions, but as Schalom Ben-Chorin, Theologia Judaica. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1982, 21, notes, it is telling, moreover, “dass sich Jesus nirgends gegen den Opferkult ausspricht.” 67  There is a good summary on “the texture of Paul’s thought” in Peter J. Tomson, Paul and the Jewish Law. Halakha in the Letters of the Apostle to the Gentiles. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 1990, 264–269. Tomson emphasizes Paul’s reliance on halakha. 68  Otfried Hofius, “Das Gesetz des Mose und das Gesetz Christi,” in Paulusstudien 50–74, here 52.

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mascus. It is plausible that already as a Pharisee, Paul had asked the question of the meaning and purpose of Torah. The Christophany before the gates of Damascus may simply have functioned as the accelerator to bring this question into renewed and much sharper focus. At any rate, what are the basic elements of Paul’s understanding of Torah in his letters?69 1. Paul affirms Torah When Paul uses the term ὁ νόμος he is thinking of the Torah that Moses received at Mount Sinai, including the commandments and oral traditions (cf. Gal. 1:14) promoted by the Pharisees. As a former Pharisee himself, the significance of Torah for Paul was that it is the Word of God, binding for all Israel. The will of God is adequately expressed in the Torah and therefore everyone who is obedient to Torah – Israel as a people and individuals – are in a righteous relation with God. Even after his encounter with the Messiah on the road to Damascus, Paul spared no effort to uphold the law and the commandments. In Rom. 7:12 he declares: “so the law is holy (ἅγιος), and the commandment (ἐντολή) is holy and just and good (ἁγία καὶ δικαία καὶ ἀγαθή).” Two verses on he says in Rom. 7:14 “for we know that the law is spiritual (πνευματικός),” and yet again in Rom. 7:16 he insists that “the law is good.” To be sure, Paul was pressed into rethinking and revising his understanding of Torah in the light of the Messiah, but I agree with Sanders that “the fact that Jesus is the Messiah is not the proof that the law must be abrogated.”70 For Paul, there was no logical correlation between accepting Jesus as Messiah and the abrogation of Torah. The fact that after Damascus Paul now thought of Jesus as the Messiah, did not mean for him that he had to negate everything he had believed about Torah. The real question for him was how this new conviction about Jesus being Messiah would shed light on his old understanding of Torah. How does Paul develop a revised Torah understanding 69  Cf. Bernd Kollmann, “Die Berufung und Bekehrung zum Heidenmissionar,” in Paulus Handbuch, 84: “Es geht um die Frage, inwieweit es vor Damaskus neben dem neuen Urteil über Jesus auch zu einer Neubewetung der Tora kam … erschöpfte sich das Damaskuserlebnis ohne unmittelbaren Bezug zur Tora in der neuen christologi­ schen Erkenntnis?” (the question is to what extent there was a re-evaluation of the Torah before Damascus in addition to the new judgment of Jesus … was the Damascus experience exhausted in the new christological knowledge without direct reference to the Torah?). 70  E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 480.

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without either betraying the ancestral foundations of piety while also not invalidating his calling to proclaim that Jesus is Messiah? 2. Sin precedes Torah Conceivably most important in Paul’s attempt to re-evaluate Torah, he protects the Torah by distancing it form the real threat for humanity, namely sin. In other words, Torah is not by any measure part of the problem,71 but as we shall see below, it is also not part of the solution. Paul declares in Rom. 5:13 that “sin was indeed in the world before the law (ἄχρι γὰρ νόμου ἁμαρτία ἦν ἐν κόσμῳ), but sin is not reckoned when there is no law (ἁμαρτία δὲ οὐκ ἐλλογεῖται μὴ ὄντος νόμου). 14 Yet death exercised dominion (ἀλλ’ ἐβασίλευσεν ὁ θάνατος) from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins (ἐπὶ τοὺς μὴ ἁμαρτήσαντας) were not like the transgression of Adam, who is a type of the one who was to come.” Paul’s overall aim here it to establish that sin is the real culprit, and not Torah. Nonetheless, there remains a tension in Paul’s argument. On the one hand, he claims that sin was in the world “before the law” even though sin was not “reckoned” by the law. On the other hand, he claims that from Adam onwards “death exercised dominion,” meaning that all people living since the time of Adam inevitably died. The tension of these claims is this: it is correct that sin as a power existed before Torah, but it is false that sin is not reckoned when there is no Torah (Paul would be correct if he had said that “sins are not reckoned when there is no law). The second claim is false since the power of sin is always “reckoned” simply by leading to death. Sin needs no Torah, no moral law, no natural law, nor any other moral yardstick to “reckon” it – the fact that a person is a sinner alone establishes death. In other words, death is the reckoning of sin, but not Torah. 3. Sin is Dead apart from Torah? In Rom. 7:8 the apostle explains: “but sin, seizing an opportunity in the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. Apart from the law sin lies dead” (χωρὶς γὰρ νόμου ἁμαρτία νεκρά). Here too, as in Rom. 71  To remove all potential misconception about the relation between sin and Torah, Paul makes explicit, in Rom. 7:7: “what then should we say? That the law is sin? (ὁ νόμος ἁμαρτία;) By no means! (μὴ γένοιτο).” See also Rom. 3:21: “do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law,” presumably because Torah itself points to faith, as Paul discusses in Romans 4 with the example of Abraham.

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5:13–14, Paul’s overarching understanding of Torah raises questions. Paul’s terse statement in Rom. 7:8 that “apart from the law sin lies dead” parallels his claim in Rom. 5:13 that “sin is not reckoned when there is no law.” However, from an ontological point of view, this is a false conception and therefore theologically problematic. Paul himself has established in Rom. 5:13 that sin was in the world before the Torah, and he further established in Rom. 5:12 (repeated in Rom. 5:17, 21; 6:23) that the consequence of sin is death. Hofius sums it up well to the point: “das Gesetz sagt, was zuvor schon der Fall ist (“the law says, what was already the case”).72 And the case was that the power of sin was an ontological reality before Torah came on the scene. In a sense, then, Torah stands chronologically between sin and death. However, Torah is irrelevant in terms of the dynamic between sin and death. The consequence of death is a direct result of sin and not the consequence of breaking Torah. Torah cannot avert the death resulting from sin. In that sense, Paul’s claim that “apart from the law sin lies dead” is inaccurate. Apart from Torah, or any other law for that matter, sin is active and not dead. Sin as a power is always active in every existence; sin needs no help and no assistance to “succeed.” Every single life is entangled in the existential flow from birth to death. Nothing can prevent that; this is precisely the reason why sin is an ontological-existential structure affecting every Dasein. For this reason alone, Paul’s claim in Rom. 3:20 that “through the law comes the knowledge of sin” is ambiguous at best. Torah cannot measure sin (singular). The power of sin, to repeat, operates as an ontological stricture, and imprisons every human being. All persons live under the compulsion and destruction of the power of sin, knowingly and unknowingly. To know that sin drives and derails us is independent of Torah’s ability to reckon or measure the extent and nature of an act of sin. 4. Torah marks Sins Paul is correct in suggesting that it is possible that Torah “measures” sin as an evil deed and in that way, it exposes the power of sin. This is what Paul probably had in mind in Rom. 5:20: “but law came in, with the result that the trespass multiplied” and Rom. 7:7: “if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin (ἀλλὰ τὴν ἁμαρτίαν οὐκ ἔγνων εἰ μὴ διὰ νόμου). 72  Otfried Hofius, “Die Adam-Christus-Antithese und das Gesetz. Erwägungen zu Röm 5, 12–21,” in Paulusstudien II, 62–103, here 84.

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I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet’.” In Paul’s estimation, sin produced an awareness of “all kinds of covetousness” (Rom. 7:8). Elsewhere Paul strikes similar notes. In Rom. 6:12 he remarks: “do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions,” and Rom. 6:19 he says: “you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity.” In the same vein, he speaks in Rom. 7:5 of “our sinful passions, aroused by the law.” What Paul has in mind in these statements, I suppose, is that we can measure sins (plural) – that we can identify and name them as transgressions – because there is a benchmark against which they appear as a violation of the ideal. That ideal and benchmark is Torah. In this regard, it is correct to say that sin is known through Torah and its commandment. Torah functions as the social arbitrator for ethical standards because it has defined what counts as transgressions and sins. But Torah has by itself no influence on how a person’s life-experiences are affected by desire, passions, covetousness and so on. These things are experienced directly and unmediated by Torah. Sexual desires, for example, are independent of Torah, because they are not rooted in Torah, but in our ontological makeup. Torah can “measure” sexual desires and determine their “legitimacy” because of Torah’s definition of what is accepted as legitimate and illegitimate sexual behaviour. But the ontological roots of human sexuality are deeper than the ethical definitions of it in Torah, or any other moral code. 5. Torah Cannot give Life To summarize up to this point: Paul affirms Torah and commandments as holy and good, he exculpates Torah from the sphere of the power of sin and recognizes that Torah is the moral vehicle that identifies transgressions as sins. For Paul, then, Torah is not part of the problem, namely the human condition disrupted by sin. Torah is not responsible for sin in any way. But equally, Torah for Paul is also not part of the solution. Why not? Because Torah cannot give life. Torah cannot defeat life’s arch enemy, namely the power of sin unto death. Though in a different context, Sanders’ view regarding “the argument in Gal. 3:21–25” is largely applicable to Torah in general in that it “has to do with the law’s inability to give life, which comes only by faith in Christ (who, to be sure, is the Messiah).”73 73 

E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 480.

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In Romans, Paul refers to Torah’s inability in several places. In Rom. 8:3 he contends that “God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do (τὸ γὰρ ἀδύνατον τοῦ νόμου): by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh (καὶ περὶ ἁμαρτίας κατέκρινεν τὴν ἁμαρτίαν ἐν τῇ σαρκί).” In the same context he repeats in Rom. 8:7–8: “the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law – indeed it cannot (τῷ γὰρ νόμῳ τοῦ θεοῦ οὐχ ὑποτάσσεται, οὐδὲ γὰρ δύναται), 8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” Hofius articulates well why Torah is unable to be part of the solution. “Der νόμος müsste die Sünde und den Tod überwinden und dem Tod verfallenen Sündern eine neue Existenz schenken können, wenn die und damit die Rettung ‘aus dem Gesetz’ kommen sollte” (νόμος ought to be able to overcome sin and death and offer a new existence to sinners caught up in death, should salvation ‘come by means of the law’).74 For Torah to be the solution to the human predicament it would have to be able to overcome sin. The only possible way in which Torah could be part of the solution would be to defeat the power of sin (cf. Gal. 3:22), to abolish death as the corollary of sin and to create a new existence for human beings and the cosmos. Ultimately, for Torah to be salvific it would have to be a power that is stronger than death. If the keeping of Torah would have as its result the overcoming and permanent abolition of death, then it would be the means of salvation. This is not the case; οὐδὲ γὰρ δύναται. 6. The Works of Torah If Paul is certain that the Torah is unable to be part of the solution, then it follows that neither the commandments nor the works of Torah are part of the solution either. Since Torah as such is incapable to defeat sin and death and create new life, the works of Torah, or good works in general,75 are equally powerless to do so. For this reason, it is rightly one of the most underscored aspects of Pauline theology that Paul considered salvation by grace alone to be apart from the works of Torah. Put differently, for the 74  Otfried Hofius, “‘Sünde’ – ‘Gesetz’ – ‘Gnade’,” in Exegetische und Theologische Studien, 163–175, here 169. 75 Stephen Westerholm, Justification Reconsidered. Rethinking a Pauline Theme. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013, 78, has shown that for Paul “works of the law” and “the law” are interchangeable. Both refer to the Sinai Torah “and by their very nature, require ‘works’ to fulfill them. Simply put: inherent in any law is the obligation of its subjects to comply with its terms.”

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apostle to the Gentiles, the works of Torah have no soteriological significance because they have no categorical correlation to the plight. Paul sums up his refusal to consider either Torah or works as the path to salvation in Gal. 2:21: “if justification comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing” (εἰ γὰρ διὰ νόμου δικαιοσύνη, ἄρα Χριστὸς δωρεὰν ἀπέθανεν). The alternative for Paul is not either Torah and works vs. the Messiah, or the Messiah and Torah, but exclusively the Messiah. What the law could not do – defeat sin, death and provide new life – was accomplished by God in resurrecting Jesus from the dead. This alone, according to Paul, opens the path of God’s righteousness and salvation. The current debate of what constitutes the works of Torah and to what extent these works matter in Paul’s soteriological thinking are at best secondary to an ontological-existential analysis of Paul’s understanding of salvation. Neither are good works in general, the works of Torah, nor the keeping of Torah commandments as social boundary markers required for salvation. The question of what Gentiles must do in relation to Torah for salvation is beyond dispute: for all good and virtuous works and all works of Torah – however defined – are ethical entities that have no ontological correlation to the question of the power of sin. 7. The End of Torah is the Messiah In Galatians 3, Paul discusses the function of Torah and explains the limited validity of Torah. In 3:17 he remarks: “my point is this: the law, which came four hundred thirty years later, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to nullify the promise.” The promise was made to Abraham that he would have an offspring. Until then, Gal. 3:24 says, “the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, 26 for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith.” Paul thus effectively pronounces a temporary validity for Torah, from the time of the promise to Abraham until the coming of the Messiah. The 430 years of the Torah’s validity in Israel’s history has come to an end. The classic Pauline statement that indicates the end of Torah is Rom. 10:4. Here the apostle declares that “Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes” (τέλος γὰρ νόμου Χριστὸς εἰς δικαιοσύνην παντὶ τῷ πιστεύοντι.” Hofius seems correct to me in that τέλος must be translated as “end” and not “goal, fulfillment.”76 Arguably, Paul 76 

Hofius, “Das Gesetz des Mose und das Gesetz Christi,” 64, note 51.

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does not want to suggest that Torah once had a soteriological function until the coming of Christ, but now the Messiah “fulfilled” that function completely. Paul may also have in mind a view that the Galatians entertained, that somehow salvation may be attained through the Messiah and Torah. But Paul leaves no doubt that “Christ is the end of Torah” as only in the Messiah “there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.” 8. The Law of the Messiah In Rom. 8:4, Paul, after he pointed out that the Son overcame sinful flesh, continues to say, “that the just requirement of the law (τὸ δικαίωμα τοῦ νόμου) might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” Here Paul puts the law between a requirement and fulfillment. In light of what Paul says elsewhere, especially in Rom. 10:4 where he pronounces Christ as the end of the law, the requirement mentioned here cannot be understood as an afterthought that one way or another the door is still open for a soteriological requirement. Rather, I think, what Paul argues for is the fulfillment of Torah – or more precisely, the spirit always embedded in Torah – in the power of love. That Paul thinks along this line can be gleaned from Galatians. In 5:6 he reminds his readers that in Christ Jesus “the only thing that counts is faith working through love.” Further on, in 5:13 he admonishes the Galatians “through love become slaves to one another.” The final crescendo of his deliberations ends in the solemn declaration, in 5:14: “the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’.” Paul invokes Jesus’ teaching on the most important commandment77 and turns it into “the law of the Messiah.”78 In Gal. 6:2 Paul then gives the instruction: “bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ (ἀλλήλων τὰ βάρη βαστάζετε καὶ οὕτως ἀναπληρώσετε τὸν νόμον τοῦ Χριστοῦ).79 The law of the Messiah is not a new Torah. It is, rather, the quintessential encounter between human beings who are delivered from the power of sin and filled by God’s spirit. We will return to the question of the law of the Messiah below in chapter 8.3.

77 

Cf. Mark 12:29–31, Matt. 22:37–39, Luke 10:25–27. Theodore W. Jennings Jr., Reading Derrida / Thinking Paul. On Justice. Stanford: Stanford University Press 2006, 47. 79  Cf. 1 Cor. 9:21 where Paul employs the unusual expression ἔννομος Χριστοῦ (“in the law of Christ”). 78 

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4.6 Conclusion Jesus’ death is ultimately a mystery. As a mystery we acknowledge that there are elements in this event that are not analytically and methodologically accessible to our exegesis, theology and philosophical conjectures. Even the best of logic comes to its limits in our attempt to understand God and his mysterious ways with us and the world. Ephesians and Colossians make ample use of the symbol of mystery (cf. Eph. 1:9, 3:3–9, 5:32, 6:19; Col. 1:26–27, 2:2, 4:3), but so does Paul himself. In 1 Cor. 2:1 he insists that he did “not come proclaiming the mystery of God (τὸ μυστήριον τοῦ θεοῦ)” to the Corinthians “in lofty words or wisdom.” In other words, cognitive brilliance is not the path to understanding God’s dealing with the fallen world, at least not entirely. That said, let’s respectfully attempt to progress into this mystery, as far as possible. In this chapter we examined aspects of Pauline teaching, principally Jesus as the Messiah who died, the issue of sin and sins and the function of Torah in the redemptive drama of humanity. The theme spanning all these topics is the question of atonement. When everything is said and done – what in the final verdict is the purpose of the death of Jesus? First, in most of the New Testament writings, including gospels, Acts and many other writers, there is the deep conviction that Jesus came “to die for our sins.” Even Paul himself has put his ink to such a statement. And yes, Jesus did and can forgive sins. The gospels narrate how Jesus forgave sins during his lifetime and claimed the authority to do so. During his lifetime! That means that already before his death Jesus forgave sins. He did not have to die first, then be resurrected and then be freshly empowered to forgive sins. In other words, the statement “Jesus came to forgive our sins” so deeply entrenched in New Testament thinking, does not require his death. We can elucidate this point further, as Sanders does, and look at the early rabbis who espoused “the universally held view” that “God has appointed means of atonement for every transgression, except the intention to reject God and his covenant.”80 The provisions in early rabbinic Judaism were sufficient to restore the penitent sinner to the favour of God. That said, if we continue to advocate that Jesus came only to die for the atoning of our sins, we severely misunderstand and consequently depreciate almost everything about his incarnation. But how could it be that the 80  E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 157, cf. his discussion of atonement 157–182.

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New Testament is so insistent that Jesus’ death is for our sins? The reason, I propose, may be twofold. On the one hand, virtually all books in the New Testament are tied to a narrative of contemporary Judaism that defined “sins” such that they were in need to be atoned and could be atoned for. As the early Jewish-Christian communities emerged, Jesus was seen as the new high priest, as the book of Hebrews amply demonstrates. As such, it seemed quite natural to link the death and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah as the means for the atonement of sins. In retrospect, it is understandable that it must have been extremely difficult to break out of this theological mold. For it presented a line of continuity between Judaism and the emergent Jewish-Christian churches. But Paul’s teaching on sin radically breaks this pattern by introducing the new element of sin versus sins. The first cannot be atoned for, only the latter. On the other hand, when we look at the debate on how to understand sins vis-à-vis sin, we are immediately thrown back into the hermeneutic circle. The New Testament insistence on the forgiveness of sins was a theological adventure, itself at every stage shaped by – to speak with Gadamer – inherited assumptions and prejudices. In spite of these deeply held views, courtesy of Paul, theological thinking on sins and sin did not stay stagnant and static, but ventured out into a fresh and more wholesome dynamic, a dynamic that was far more congruent with life and its manifold experiences. Even just this one aspect of Pauline thinking makes it alone worthwhile to engage the apostle vis-à-vis our contemporary existence. It is a golden nugget. We enter the hermeneutical circle by recognizing that Jesus’ incarnation pivots on a weightier purpose than atoning for sins, namely the overcoming of the real human and cosmic plight, the ontological enslavement to the power of sin and the corresponding unavoidable death. Most significantly, even when Jesus himself forgives the sins of the sinner, that forgiveness cannot thereby overcome the power of sin. Sin and death remain, even if Jesus grants forgiveness of sins. None of this suggests that the forgiveness of sins is not important or does not have a place in the redemptive work of the Messiah. It does have an appropriate place in our understanding of Pauline thinking, and beyond. In chapter 6.4 and 7.5 we will examine in exactly what ways the forgiveness of sins does figure in the grand scheme of Paul’s reflections. Second, if sins can be atoned for and forgiven, why is it that the power of sin cannot be atoned for or forgiven? This question, I propose, is one of the most significant issues Christian faith and theology faces, irrespective of the fact that most Pauline scholars do not have such a question on their

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inquisitive radar. It is naïve, I think, to do away with it as being a theological imposition that was foreign to the early Christians themselves. The reason the power of sin cannot be atoned for, and consequently be forgiven, and that even if offered by Jesus himself, is the fact that sin is not the result of a penal liability on the part of human beings. We are in the condition of sin simply because we are born human beings. We are born sinners, we are born into the state of being under the power of sin. We have done nothing whatsoever to contribute anything to be found in such a conditio humana. This is our reality. Every person is in that condition. No exceptions. As we said before many times, this condition is our ontological and existential framework within which we must live. We cannot live outside of it. No human attempt will be able to take us out of this human predicament. No ethical act, no good work, no moral perfectionism will have any impact in breaking down the barrier to life that is the power of sin – unto death. We contributed nothing wrong to be enslaved by the power of sin and we can do nothing good to be liberated from it. The “evidence” of sin is death; and death is its own evidence to the fact that sin is an inescapable power because death is itself inescapable. But there is the good news – literally τὸ εὐαγγέλιον – that Jesus’ death did once and forever defeat the power of sin. In the next chapter we will discuss the details of how Rom. 1:16: δύναμις γὰρ θεοῦ ἐστιν εἰς σωτηρίαν παντὶ τῷ πιστεύοντι, Ἰουδαίῳ τε πρῶτον καὶ Ἕλληνι ([the gospel of his Son (Rom. 1:9)] “is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek”). Or in the words of Michael Theobald, what does it mean to speak of “der stellvertretende Heilstod Jesu als der Grund der Rechtfertigung der Gottlosen” (“Jesus’ representative death for salvation as the foundation for the justification of the ungodly”)?81 In what way can we say that Jesus’ death was representative and the foundation for the ungodly? By way of conclusion, let us return to the metaphor of building our Pauline house. Every structure needs a foundation. The stronger the foundation, the more structurally reliable is the rest of the house that rests on the foundation. A weak foundation will crack and endanger the superstructure. It may take time, but at one time the house is in danger of falling, especially if there are relentless winds or eroding soil. We may liken the foundation of the house to our understanding of sin vs. sins. To put it differently, what we think about the issue of sin and sins resembles the foundation, and the rest of the house resembles our understanding of other themes in 81 

Michael Theobald, “Römerbrief,” in Paulus Handbuch, 213–227, here 224.

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Paul and the Christian tradition, such as christology, soteriology and ethics. When we construct the house, we must begin with the foundation, and not the roof. This sequence is given and irreversible. In like fashion, to build a strong foundation in articulating what the real issue is for Paul will help us with building the upper floors.

Chapter 5

Soteriology 1: The Means of Salvation The death of Christ, however, is the death of death, the negation of negation. Hegel1

Up to this point in our discussion we have examined some of the main concepts that we encounter in our attempt to understand Paul. We have explored the notions of sin and sins, and the vast difference between these two. We have also studied Pauline and non-Pauline ideas regarding the Messiah, Torah and in what manner we can and cannot speak of Jesus’ death as atonement. The topic that we are now addressing is the question of the meaning of salvation. More precisely, we are endeavouring to provide the answer to the question that the author of Hebrews expressed in these terms. In relation to Jesus, the author says (Heb. 5:9) that he is “the source of eternal salvation” (NRSV). The KJV speaks of “the author of eternal salvation,” Luther speaks of “Urheber ihres ewigen Heils” (Lutherbibel 1964), or “der Urheber der ewigen Seligkeit” (Lutherbibel 2017). The Greek wording is αἴτιος σωτηρίας αἰωνίου. The semantic domain of the adjective αἴτιος includes notions such as “occasioning” and “causing.” In a substantive sense it can mean “a cause” and is thus equivalent to the neuter τὸ αἴτιον and the feminine ἡ αἰτία. The significance for our interests lies in the fact that the author of Hebrews understands the life, death and resurrection as the cause of what he terms “salvation.” Paul also employs the term σωτηρία 14 times in his authentic letters (46 occurrences in all of the New Testament). Right from the beginning of his writing of letters in 51 CE, Paul palpably links Jesus and salvation. In 1 Thess. 1:9 he asserts that God has destined us “to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ” (ἔθετο ἡμᾶς ὁ θεὸς εἰς … περιποίησιν σωτηρίας διὰ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ). Thus, Paul himself made the first connection between Jesus, whom God the Father raised 1 Georg F. W. Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, translated by E. B. Spears and J. Burdon Sanderson. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1968, vol.  3, 92.

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from the dead (1:10, ὃν ἤγειρεν ἐκ [τῶν] νεκρῶν) and salvation. In other words, from the very beginning of writing his letters, Paul was firmly anchored on the foundation that Jesus is our salvation. What strikes the reader of Paul’s letters immediately is the fact that Paul envisions salvation to have a fixed order. Salvation is initiated by God, effected by God’s grace and gifted by God to human beings, both Jews and Gentiles. The irreversible sequence of salvation begins with God and is aimed at human beings. Indeed, human beings cannot by themselves add anything to gain salvation. Neither their good moral character nor their good works can do something that would aid God in procuring salvation. All of this is to say, that the notion of divine grace is inextricably linked to God’s provision of salvation. What, then, is salvation in the Pauline sense? In what way does “salvation” correspond to the human predicament of the distinction between “sin” and “sins?”

5.1  The Requirement of Correlation Given the fact that there is a myriad of studies on Pauline theological thinking, so large a body of monographs and essays impossible for me to evaluate with any amount of fairness, my approach is the following. Rather than plunging into the Pauline text and immersing myself in the exegetical groundwork already completed, which is in itself an important task, I start from a foundational question: what requires salvation, and what is salvation? Or expressed differently: for the apostle Paul, to what issue is Jesus the answer, 2 and in precisely what manner is he the answer? What is it in Jesus’ death and resurrection that corresponds to the human predicament in such a way that it is actually solved, that human beings are in reality “saved” from the predicament? And beyond Paul, in what sense can a historical event such as Jesus’ death and human faith in the resurrection be said to have contemporary relevance and salvific power? How is it possible that the person of Jesus of Nazareth, a man who lived two thousand years ago, has ontological-existential implications for us today? At first glance, this may sound like a reasonable, if not the normal course, for examining Pauline soteriology. However, my claim is that this is rarely 2  Jesus correlates his coming and calling with the sinners; cf. Luke 5:31–32 “Jesus answered, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; 32 I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance’” (οὐ χρείαν ἔχουσιν οἱ ὑγιαίνοντες ἰατροῦ ἀλλ’ οἱ κακῶς ἔχοντες· 32 οὐκ ἐλήλυθα καλέσαι δικαίους ἀλλ’ ἁμαρτωλοὺς εἰς μετάνοιαν).

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the case. Since most exegetes are suspicious of and want to curtail theological, dogmatic and denominational lenses laid over the Pauline texts, they start with the texts and let them speak for themselves. I agree that the first inevitable step is to let Paul speak for himself. However, understanding Paul is not exhausted in giving him the floor exclusively. As I mentioned in chapter 1, in order to understand Paul, we must go beyond Paul. In that vein, the issue of Pauline soteriology is encrypted in the correlation between text and interpretation, plight and solution, mystery and reality, past and future, life and death. 1. In the broadest sense, we must be able to correlate what Paul thinks about the world and the human predicament, on the one hand, with what he proposes as the solution to the predicament, on the other hand. The solution must correspond to the problem. This is to say, that we must articulate a clearly defined problem, and discover a solution that is categorically corresponding to the problem. Or the reverse may be true, it is possible to have a detailed understanding of the solution, but the solution does not address the plight in a categorical correspondence. In my view, this is the greater problem in Pauline scholarship, as is especially apparent in the new perspective on Paul. More on that in a later chapter. What is a categorical or conceptual correspondence? In a nutshell, the nature of the issue determines the nature of the solution. In non-theological contexts the issue is obvious: a pipe that leaks water, needs a plumber to fix the leak and not an electrician. An appendix ready to burst needs an internist surgeon and not a dentist. A flat tire needs air and not gasoline. These examples are obvious and need no further explanation. So, what about Paul? In chapter 3 we looked in detail about what Paul, and some other New Testament texts, say about sins and sin. We summed up that Paul sees sin and sins as the human predicament par excellence; but the entire cosmos is also afflicted by that same destructive power. If so, how do we define and understand the categories of sin and sins, and what must be the categories to solve the issue in an adequate manner? Here is the crucial insight: sin and sins do not belong to the same categories! Sin and sins are not interchangeable realities. Notwithstanding the fact that many New Testament authors seem to use these two terms indiscriminately, on occasion even Paul himself (see above 3.6) does so, they are not the same. What, then, is the difference between them? Sin, in the singular, belongs to an ontological category; sins, in the plural belong to a predominantly ethical or psychological category. Sin is classified as an ontological category because it is a condition or a state in which we – every human being, past, present and future – find ourselves without our input.

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Sin is a power or force in and over every human life that cannot be escaped. It is built in, so to speak by default, into our very own existence. We cannot live apart or outside the force of sin in our Dasein. This is impossible. No theology and no philosophy, no ethics and no exegesis, however sophisticated they may be contrived, can have any impact on the ontological reality of sin. To put this in the bluntest possible terms, by way of an example: when a child is drowning in water – the ontological reality for the child – no moral rebuke, no philosophical wisdom, no lecture on how to swim properly or any other well-intended discourse will save the child from drowning. Encouraging words do not categorically address the physical structure of water. There is no categorical correspondence between water and words. Speaking nice words to a child drowning in water cannot change the viscosity of water or have some other structural impact on water so that the child can safely walk on it. In terms of Pauline theology, it cannot be emphasized enough, that unless there is a categorical correspondence between sin as an ontological predicament and the death and resurrection of Jesus, interpreted as an adequate and correlating solution to sin, we may have nice words about the apostle, about his teaching, and about God’s wonderful plan with Israel and the cosmos – but ultimately fail to understand both Paul and the reality of our human existence. To repeat what I have said many times now, sin understood as an ontological-existential power that is operative on the ontological level of our lives must be overcome on that same existential-ontological level. If the real ontological issue of sin is death, then the ontological solution must be the overcoming of death; this points to the ontological nature of the resurrection. Sin cannot be dealt with on the ethical, moral, psychological, juridical or theological level! 2. This then raises the question of the categories for classifying sins. How does Jesus’ death and resurrection correlate adequately to the issue of sins? Important is to think of sins – the actual misdeeds or transgressions – primarily in non-ontological categories. This does not mean that they are any less “real” than sin, but merely that their ontological structures are derivative and dependent on the primary ontological structure of sin as power. Sins can for the most part be categorized as ethical mishap or moral transgression, psychological violation, sexual aggression, structural injustice, personal abuse and so on. The main point is that sins are acts or deeds for which we as human beings are responsible. It lies within our power to either do good or evil, we are able to do both good and evil deeds because the ability to act as ethical agent is rooted in our human constitution. Here, then, lies the differentiating feature vis-à-vis sin. Sin is not an

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act for which we are accountable because sin is not rooted in our Dasein as a power for which we are responsible. But sins are acts for which we are responsible precisely because of our human constitution and the ability to make evil decisions. Hence, sin is ontological, but sins are ethical; sin must be overcome, while sins must be forgiven. In this regard Sanders is entirely correct when he insists that “the whole expiatory system of Judaism” and “repentance and forgiveness… do not respond to the real plight of man.”3 The reason, as we contend, is that the forgiveness of sins does not correspond to the ontological plight of death. 3. Moreover, to understand Pauline soteriology, there must be a correlation between what human beings actually experience in their daily lives – their existence – and the solution offered in the text, accepted in faith and experienced at least partially in the newness of their being. Seen in a different light, if we as scholars would be able to come up with a perfect description of Paul’s thought, if we were able to sort out all exegetical and theological questions, if we were so competent as to mitigate all disputes between exegetes, theologians and philosophers – we would have achieved a wonderful feat, but only a description of an ancient author’s thinking. As historians we want to be accurate, as exegetes we want to be faithful to the text, but as theologians we want to understand the ancient message in our contemporary context. A purely historical account, or even exegetical account of Paul, whose ideas may not be of interest for us today, amounts to not much more than a historical relic of a bygone age. As those interested in understanding Paul, we must go beyond Paul. Understanding Pauline soteriology goes therefore in this direction: how does the means of salvation relate to the disclosing of truth vis-a-vis our human predicament. What happens in, by, through the means, and why is the means of salvation the categorical correlative to the plight of sin? What is the ontological-existential element in this scheme? And beyond the ontological, what is the ontic change that human beings hope for in the economy of salvation? Jürgen Moltmann, who sees history as “concrete history of God” proposes that salvation only happens “if all disaster, forsakenness by God, absolute death, the infinite curse of damnation and sinking into nothingness is in God himself,” suggesting thereby that salvation has “cosmological breadth and ontological depth.”4 3  E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism. A Comparison of Patterns of Religion. Philadelphia: Fortress Press 1977, 499; original emphasis. 4  Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God. The Cross of Christ as the Foundation and Criticism of Christian Theology. London: SCM 1974, 246.

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Moltmann describes here what I have been explicating as the existential dimension of Dasein. As human beings we are hardly interested in mere description of events of the past for their own sake. As Desmond Tutu once said: “we learn from history that we learn nothing from history.”5 But when it comes to Paul, our claim is the opposite. By attempting to understand Paul in our contemporary context, the only framework for our lives, we are drawn into the historical Pauline drama of salvation and want to learn what we can learn from it for our own lives. By “learning from it” I do not mean some exegetical insights, or some doctrinal statement, or even some theological discoveries. To be sure, these “takings” are important, but mainly in view of our existential reality. In other words, we start understanding Paul’s teaching about Jesus’ death and resurrection when we can square it up with our daily lives. Moltmann’s reference to “ontological depth” is an allusion to what I mean. Namely, that once the light goes on regarding the meaning of sin and salvation, as expressed by Paul in significant preliminary ways, we can extend Paul’s thinking to our own Dasein – without either compromising Paul himself or our own existence.

5.2  The Means of Salvation When we speak of salvation, from the outset we must make a critical distinction. Just as there is a substantial difference between sin and sins, so likewise there is a substantial difference between the means and the mode of salvation. In a comprehensive sense, then, salvation consists of two – quite separate but intimately related – events. One is the event of the divine initiative that addresses the human predicament, and the other is the event of the human appropriation of the divine solution. In the classification of the two events, I follow Otfried Hofius who distinguishes quite accurately between, on the one hand, what he calls Heilsgeschehen or Heilsereignis (the event of salvation) 6 and, on the other hand, Heilsaneignung or Heilsteilhabe (the appropriation of salvation).7 The event of salvation – Jesus’ death and resurrection – may be characterized as the means of salvation and the event of appropriation – coming to faith in Jesus the Messiah – the mode of salvation. 5 

Wall-mounted saying in the Desmond Tutu Foundation, Cape Town, South Africa. Hofius, “Die Auferstehung der Toten als Heilsereignis. Zum Verständnis der Auferstehung in 1 Kor 15,” in Exegetische Studien, 102–131. 7  Cf. Hofius, “Wort Gottes und Glaube bei Paulus,” in Paulusstudien, 148–174, here 173. 6  Cf.

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In English-speaking scholarship on Paul nearly every writer draws at one point in their description of Pauline thinking on the term “means.” Given the fact that the word “means” is an ordinary English term, this is not surprizing. What is astonishing, however, is that in exegetical and theological writing, especially where the term seems to have a more technical significance, it remains unexplained. The underlying assumption is simply that the reader will know the sense of the concept of “means.” But when we actually look at the scholarly literature, there is a baffling array and semantic latitude of what the term is supposed to imply. As even a cursory survey of the term “means” indicates there is no agreement in terms of its definition, meaning, exegetical or theological signification. The term is used indiscriminately both in relation to Torah and various contexts within Pauline soteriology. I am merely using the following studies as representative samples of Pauline scholarship. I could add examples from almost any book written on Paul. Herman Ridderbos claims that “the law is the unique means to acquire for oneself merit, reward [and] righteousness before God.”8 E. P. Sanders remarks that “the law provides for means of atonement.”9 Terence L. Donaldson uses the term “means” in many different contexts.10 Elsewhere Donaldson, in his essay “Paul within Judaism: A Critical Evaluation from a ‘New Perspective’ Perspective,”11 refers to Sanders’ identification of Paul’s “most fundamental conviction” that “God provided Christ as a means of salvation for all, Gentiles as well as Jews, on equal terms.” James D. G. Dunn notes that “the law was a means of staying in the covenant.”12 Brad Eastman uses the term “means” with various connotations.13 Gerald O’Collins, in an otherwise good study even employs a heading called “The Means of Salvation”14 but only assembles a list of scriptural references without giving a definition of “means.” Stephen 8  Herman Ridderbos, Paul. An Outline of His Theology. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company 1975, 132. 9  E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism. Philadelphia: Fortress Press 1977, 422. He uses the term many elsewhere, cf. 236, 305, 320. 10  Terence L. Donaldson, Paul and the Gentiles. Remapping the Apostle’s Convictional World. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 1997, for example 118, 129, 144, 145, 150, 211, 217, 233, 239, 247. 11  In Mark D. Nanos and Magnus Zetterholm (eds), Paul within Judaism. Restoring the First-Century Context to the Apostle. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2015, 277–301, here 280. 12  James D. G. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company 1998, 338. 13  Brad Eastman, The Significance of Grace in the Letters of Paul. New York: Peter Lang 1999, 4, 76, 88, 102, 115, 175. 14  Gerald O’Collins, “Salvation” in ABD 5, 912.

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Westerholm asserts, correctly, that “faith is thus both the means by which the divine gift of justification is received, and itself the divine gift.”15 N. T. Wright also employs the term means in many of his writings. For example, in one of his books he brings his intention to a focal point when he says: “the question is about the means of salvation, how is it accomplished.”16 Although I do not want to push this semantic detail too far, the fact that so many scholars use the term “means” in so many different senses shows that there is little agreement as to what “saves” in Paul’s thinking, what the “means” of Pauline soteriology is. My point is simply that because there is no adequate grasp nor description of what the problem is in the first place, therefore one can hardly expect an agreement as to the solution of the problem. At any rate, what do I mean when I speak of the “means” in Paul’s soteriology? The answer, in short, is the “cause” of salvation. We are attempting to give a conceptual framework within which we can make the greatest possible sense of what exactly, in Paul’s view, saves a person, or by what means a person is saved. As illustrated above, there exists a wide latitude in which the term “means” has been used. There is no clear definition of what that term denotes and, hence, a lack of clarity in how it should be interpreted in Paul’s thought. It is a kind of variable that is often used for lack of a better term. When I use the term “means” I understand by it the totality of causes, precisely the four causes as Aristotle first introduced them. Aristotle proposed that to understand the notion of a “cause” one must consider that a cause is a complex nexus of interrelated causes, each of which equally bears on the phenomenon that is called in its totality a cause. He spoke of cause as a “fourfold (τὰ δ` αἴτια λέγεται τετραχῶς)” phenomenon (983a)17 and of “several causes of the same thing” (Physics 195a). Moreover, there are four distinct causes (194b). These causes are classified and known by their scholastic names as causa formalis, causa materialis, causa efficient and causa finalis. Aristotle himself explained these causes in the following terms. The formal cause is that which is archetypical, that which indicates the essence or genus of the cause; in other words, the most basic or primary aspect of a 15 Stephen Westerholm, Justification Reconsidered. Rethinking a Pauline Theme. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2013, 73. 16  N. T. Wright, Justification. God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision. Downers Grove: IVP Academic 2009, 10 (original emphasis). 17  For Greek text and German translation, see Matthias Baltes, Die philosophische Lehre des Platonismus, Der Platonismus in der Antike. Grundlagen – System – Ent­ wicklung, vol.  4. Stuttgart: Frommann Verlag 1996, 128–129 and commentary 407–408.

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cause or nexus of causes. The material cause is that out of which or with which (the actual material) something is caused; in his words, the bronze of the statue or the silver of a bowl. The efficient cause is described by Aristotle as the primary source for change, for example, as the role of a parent in rearing a child. Lastly, the final cause is that “for the sake of which” something is done, as for example, walking is done for health. The singular “means” is thus the nexus of the four Aristotelian causes. Each cause – formal, material, efficient and final – is only a unique aspect of the one means. The means as a whole consists thus of the unifying complexity of four distinct causes. In our reading of Paul along the lines of the Aristotelian causes, understood as the means of salvation, we will be able to present various elements of Pauline soteriology in a coherent manner. Also, to understand the cause of salvation in the category of the “means” will later help us to clarify another important aspect in Paul’s scheme of salvation, namely that faith in not a cause as such but the “mode” of salvation.

5.3  Cause in Philo of Alexandria Before we are in a position to discuss how Paul understands the cause(s) or the means of salvation we will examine, in an important intermediary step, how his contemporary Philo of Alexandria explained the cause(s) of the cosmos. Philo, it seems, who was far more receptive than Paul toward reading and interpreting scripture with recourse to philosophical thinking, can serve us as an example that in a milieu not unlike that of Paul, scripture was illuminated by overlaying biblical texts with a philosophical lens. For Philo, as for us, the purpose was not to draw attention to philosophy as such, but to make the biblical text as intelligible as possible. How did Philo achieve such a feat? It is striking that Philo employed a distinction of four causes in his explanation of the origin of creation.18 There is not enough evidence to suggest that Philo takes this distinction directly from Aristotle; more likely, he employed a distinction of causes that was part of the Middle-Platonic and Stoic doxographic traditions, both of which had already adapted the Aristotelian distinction for their own philosophic interests.19 For our pur18  The following is adapted from my monograph Divine Providence in Philo of Alexandria. TSAJ 77. (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 1999), 109–110. 19  It is important to recognize that Aristotle himself does not make a formal association between his understanding of causes and the prepositional scheme as it was developed in later philosophic discussions.

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poses, the question of the precise origin of the idea is not as important as the fact that Philo did employ such a distinction in his explanation of the origin of creation. In the passage De Cherubim 125,20 Philo explains the four causes of creation on the basis of a word play with four Greek prepositions: “For to bring anything into being needs all these [causes] conjointly, the ‘by which’ (τὸ ὑφ᾿ οὗ), the ‘from which’ (τὸ ἐξ οὗ), the ‘through which’ (τὸ δι᾿ οὗ), the ‘for which’ (τὸ δι᾿ ὃ), and the first of these is the cause (αἴτιον), the second the material (ὕλη), the third the tool or instrument (ἐργαλεῖον21), and the fourth the end or object (αἰτία).”22 Philo then specifies this classification more precisely: the cause is God, the material are the four elements (τὰ τέσσαρα στοιχεῖα), the instrument is the λόγος of God (ὄργανον δὲ λόγον θεοῦ) 23, and the final cause is the goodness of the creator (ἀγαθότης τοῦ δημιουργοῦ). Based on the passage Cher. 124:7, we can construct a table providing a concise outline of the prepositional scheme.24 First Cause Second Cause Third Cause Fourth Cause

by which (τὸ ὑφ᾿ οὗ) from which (τὸ ἐξ οὗ) through which (τὸ δι᾿ οὗ) for which (τὸ δι᾿ ὃ)

cause (αἴτιον) material (ὕλη) instrument (ἐργαλεῖον) object (αἰτία)

God Four Elements Logos Goodness

Philo’s Prepositional Scheme 20  For the Greek text and a German translation, cf. Matthias Baltes, Die philosophi­ sche Lehre des Platonismus, 130–131 and commentary 409–413. 21  Philo’s usual term for instrument is ὄργανον. 22  Cher. 125. See the parallel accounts in QG 1:58 and Prov. 1:23. 23  See the discussion on the λόγος as instrument of creation in Hans-Friedrich Weiss, Untersuchungen zur Kosmologie des hellenistischen und palästinischen Judentums. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag 1966, 269–272. Note also Thomas H. Tobin, The Creation of Man: Philo and the History of Interpretation, The Catholic Biblical Quarterly Monograph Series 14. Washington: Catholic Biblical Association 1983, 66–71 and Georgios D. Farandos, Kosmos und Logos nach Philon. Amsterdam: Rodopi 1976, 267–271. 24 Cf. Cher. 127. For a discussion of the scheme, see David Runia, Philo of Alexandria and the Timaeus of Plato. Philosophia Antiqua 44. Leiden: Brill 1986, 173. The origin of this prepositional scheme is uncertain although it probably originated with the Peripatetics (formal, material, efficient, final cause) and was later modified by the Platonist and Stoic traditions; cf. the discussions in Thomas H. Tobin, The Creation of Man, 66–68; Heinrich Dörrie, “Präpositionen und Metaphysik: Wechselwirkung zweier Prinzipienreihen,” in: idem, Platonica Minora. Munich: W. Fink 1976, 124–136.

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Philo discusses the notion of causes in two more texts. In Quaestiones et Solutiones in Genesim 1:58, he provides an allegorical exegesis of Gen. 4:1, the verse in which Eve exclaims after she gave birth to Cain: “I have acquired a man through God.” Philo now gives the following interpretation. He explains that: “(Concerning acquisition) a distinction is made between ‘by someone’ or ‘from someone’ and ‘through something’ or ‘from something,’ that is, from matter. ‘Through someone’ means through a cause, and ‘through something’ means through an instrument. But the father and creator of the universe is not an instrument but a cause.” Here Philo also lists the four causes and explicitly mentions that only God is the cause in the sense of being able to bring about a result. In the second text, De Providentia 1:23, Philo once more speaks of the four causes of creation, but introduces a new element when he characterizes the final cause here in the sense of the model (παράδειγμα). The list of the four causes is identical to the one narrated by Basil of Caesarea and is, according to Baltes, of Platonic origin.25 A combination of the three Philonic texts thus yields a total of five causes. These are: τὸ ὑφ᾿ οὗ = αἴτιον = θεός τὸ ἐξ οὗ = ἡ ὕλη τὸ δι᾿ οὗ = τὸ ἐργαλεῖον = ὁ θεοῦ λόγος [τὸ πρὸς ὅ = τὸ παράδειγμα] τὸ δι᾿ ὅ = τὸ οὗ ἕνεκα = ἡ αἰτία To repeat my earlier point, of significance for us is not so much the question of the number of causes enumerated and discussed by Philo as is the fact that he did employ a philosophical scheme of causes in his explanation of the creation of the cosmos. Rather than postulating one simple cause, for example “God,” Philo understood that a more precise explanation of the origin of creation was possible by recourse to Greek philosophy without compromising his loyalty to the biblical narrative. Philo is central, therefore, for our proposed reading of Paul’s soteriology in a manner that equals the Alexandrian’s understanding of creation. Not only is Philo a contemporary of Paul, but what is even more pertinent, he is a prominent witness to the hermeneutical fact that biblical texts were interpreted in a sophisticated philosophical manner that attempted to do justice to both the biblical text and philosophical insights. How we can apply this reading to Paul’s soteriology will have to be demonstrated now. 25 Cf.

Die philosophische Lehre des Platonismus, 411–412.

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5.4  The Means of Salvation in Paul Paul’s calling as the apostle to the nations shortly after Jesus’ resurrection put him in one way or another into the precarious situation of making hermeneutical, theological and personal sense of the life and death of Jesus the Christ. In concrete terms, the question before Paul was the reordering of his life in view of his Pharisaic heritage and the unexpected revelation that Jesus is the Messiah.26 I am here not so much interested in what scholars have determined about Paul’s success or failure in his attempt to make coherent sense of his christological interpretation.27 I am, however, suggesting that we – as Paul’s readers – can make some coherent sense of his attempts to make intelligible the intricacies of divine salvation by applying the distinctive hermeneutical perspective of the uniqueness of the means and mode of salvation. Our understanding of the “means” follows the distinction of causes that is based on Aristotle and, as we saw, applied in biblical exegesis by Philo. I am not all suggesting that Paul himself was directly depending on either Aristotle or Philo in his conception of soteriology regarding his understanding of the complexity of causes. I am also not suggesting that Paul himself had a sophisticated philosophical hermeneutic nor a consistent language that included the distinction of causes in an Aristotelian or technical sense.28 I am, however, proposing a hermeneutical lens, namely, to read Pauline soteriology from this philosophical perspective (distinction between causes as the one means and faith as the corresponding mode of salvation) in order to make the complex discussion of soteriology, and hence, the correlation between sin, sins, grace, faith and works more lucid. As even a cursory reading of Paul’s epistles indicates, his texts implicitly assume that 26  The following discussion is adapted from my essay “The Means and Mode of Salvation: A Hermeneutic Proposal for Clarifying Pauline Soteriology,” in Horizons in Biblical Theology 29 (2007), 203–222. 27  For a discussion of the important question of Paul’s monotheistic conception of God following his Damascus Christophany, cf. Larry Hurtado, “Paul’s Christology,” in CCSP, 185–198. 28  There is, however, the interesting prepositional play in 1 Cor 8:6 where Paul might have elaborated the LXX text of Malachi 2:10 to include the prepositional scheme. Specifically, the reference to ἐξ οὗ and δι᾿ οὗ seem to parallel the material and instrumental cause respectively. Can we assume from 1 Cor 8:6 that Paul had a good comprehension of the significance of the metaphysical scheme and that, consequently, he employed prepositions intentionally with a philosophical meaning? My own view is rather skeptical in this matter. Recently, however, in an erudite monograph, Troels Engberg-Peder­ sen, Paul and the Stoics. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press 2000, has suggested that Paul’s knowledge of philosophy may have included elements of Stoicism.

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salvation is effectuated by more than one homogeneous cause. Paul’s language provides sufficient evidence to develop this train of argument. To repeat what I proposed in section 5.2 above, when I employ the term “means” I understand by it the totality of causes as defined by Aristotle and applied by Philo in his explanation of the creation of the cosmos. Our next task is to demonstrate how the Aristotelian scheme of four causes amounts to the one means in Paul. Each cause – formal, material, efficient and final – is only a unique aspect of the one means of salvation. The Formal Cause. The Aristotelian definition of the formal cause as the most primary, basic or essential cause is readily identifiable in Paul. Even a quick reading of the Pauline corpus attests to the fact that for Paul the principal cause of salvation is the one God 29 of Jews and Christians. In his first letter, Paul reminds the Thessalonians that it is God who calls people into his own kingdom and glory (1 Thess. 2:12), that God will raise his son (1 Thess. 1:9–10) and all the believers who have fallen asleep in Christ (1 Thess. 4:14). Perhaps the most articulate reference is Paul’s saying in 1 Thess. 5:9: “For God has not destined (ἔθετο aorist middle of τίθημι) us for wrath, but to obtain (περιποιήσις) salvation (σωτηρία) through our Lord Jesus Christ.” In 1 Cor. 1:21 Paul indicates that it pleased God to save even through folly those who believe, since God himself chose what is foolish and weak in the world (1:27) and what is low and despised in the world (1:28). Then Paul brings the first chapter of 1 Corinthians to a focal point when he declares that God made Jesus Christ our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption. In 1 Cor. 2:10–12 Paul provides a brief epistemological excursus when he points out that even our knowledge of God depends on God’s giving of his Spirit. Paul continues to remind the Corinthians that God is judge (5:13), that God raised Jesus and will raise the believers (6:14). In 2 Corinthian 5:19, it seems beyond question for Paul that it was God himself who initiated the reconciliation of the world to himself (θεὸς ἦν ἐν Χριστῷ κόσμον καταλλάσσων ἑαυτῷ). Here, clearly, the formal cause for the reconciliation of the world is God. In Galatians, Paul sets out his view that God has sent his son (4:4) and the Spirit of the Son (4:6), that the Galatians are known by God (4:9) and that it is God who justifies the Gentiles (3:6). In Romans, Paul sets forth that God judges the world (3:7), God has demonstrated his righteousness (3:21, 25), reckons righteousness apart from works (4:6), gives life to the dead (4:17), shows his love (5:5, 8), sent his 29 

Given Paul’s background of an unswerving commitment to monotheism – both as a Jewish and Christian believer – his location of the salvific process in the one God is not surprising at all.

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own son (8:3), works for the good of those who love him (8:28), has either mercy or hardens a person’s heart as he pleases (9:15–18), has consigned all people to disobedience (11:32), assigns a person’s measure of faith (12:3) and will crush Satan (16:20). These references in the Pauline letters to God as the agent of life and salvation are the foundation of Paul’s understanding of the divine-human relation. The reason, impetus, direction and fruit of that dynamic depends on God; God “causes” salvation as he wishes. In theological terms, God is saviour, in philosophical terms, he is the formal cause of salvation. The Material Cause.  It is a relatively uncomplicated matter to identify the material cause in Paul’s conception of salvation. In Aristotelian terms, the material cause is the actual matter or substance “from which” something is formed or done. In the classical example used by Aristotle, the clay of the artist is the material cause. In the sphere of Pauline soteriology, Paul’s christological interpretation of the life of Jesus as the Christ corresponds to the material cause. There are numerous references in Paul’s letter that provide ample evidence that the actual physical manner in which salvation is imparted by God is in his flesh and blood Son, Jesus of Nazareth, who was resurrected as the Christ. In 1 Thessalonians, Paul proclaims that the risen Jesus “delivers us from the wrath to come” (1:10) that “Jesus died and rose again” (4:14) and that God has destined us “to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ (ἔθετο ἡμᾶς ὁ θεὸς εἰς … περιποίησιν σωτηρίας διὰ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ).” Without employing a kind of philosophical language akin to that of Philo, Paul concentrates on God’s divine intervention as being accomplished in the physical substance (cf. Phil. 2:8 “being found in appearance as a human”) of the incarnated son. In 1 Corinthians, Paul emphasizes that God made Jesus our “righteousness” and “redemption” (1:30). In 6:11, Paul reminds the Corinthians that that “you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” Moreover, Paul notes that there is “one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist” (8:6) and that God “gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (15:57). In 2 Corinthians Paul affirms that all the promises of God find their “Yes” in Christ (1:19–20) and in whom the Christian church is established (1:21). God “in Christ leads us to triumph” (2:14) just as the Corinthians “are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved” (2:15). Specifically, Paul says of the life of Jesus that it will be, in spite of momentary sufferings, for life (4:11–12, 14). Paul then states succinctly that God reconciled believers to himself

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“through Christ” (5:18), that believers are “ambassadors for Christ” (5:19) and that God made Christ “who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (5:20). Paul preaches “the gospel of Christ” (10:14) and reminds his opponents that believers “shall live with Christ by the power of God” (2 Cor. 13:4). In his letter to the Galatians, Paul clarifies that a person “is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ” (2:16) and then explains in an autobiographical section: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (2:20). Similarly, Paul affirms: “I do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification were through the law, then Christ died to no purpose” (2:21) and similarly “for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith” (3:26). In his letter to the Romans Paul likewise points out the salvific effect of Jesus” life and resurrection. A most important statement is Rom. 3:22–24. Here Paul speaks of “the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction; since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.” Elsewhere Paul remarks that “we are justified by faith” and have peace in Jesus Christ (5:1), that life is “the free gift in the grace of that one man Jesus Christ” (5:15, 17), a gift that will lead to eternal life “through Jesus Christ our Lord” (5:21). In Christ, death and sin died and have no power over him or believers (6:8–10). For those who are in Christ Jesus “there is now no condemnation” (8:1) as nothing can separate the believer in Christ from the love of God (8:38–39). For Paul, it is the bedrock of his theological convictions that salvation is linked to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Throughout his letters, the Apostle establishes a clear connection between the life, suffering, resurrection of Jesus Christ and the significance of that life for the salvation of a person. Even though he employs various terms and images, his chief aim is precisely to convince his congregations that this Jesus of Nazareth is the ground and cause of a person’s salvation (cf. 1 Cor. 3:11). In 1 Thess. 5: 9, for example, the connection between σωτηρία and Jesus is explicitly expressed. Terminologically, this relation is defined by the preposition διά and thus points to Jesus as the efficient cause, rather than the material one, at least in the sense of the Philonic explanation of causes.30 Conceptually, however, we may argue that the importance of that statement for Paul lies in his 30  Cf.

Gregory E. Sterling, “Prepositional Metaphysics in Jewish Wisdom Specula-

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conviction that God made salvation possible in relation to the life and resurrection of Jesus as God’s son. The Efficient Cause.  For Aristotle the efficient cause is that which begins the movement of the cause or that which effectuates the outcome of the cause. In Philo, as we saw, the efficient cause in the creation of the universe was the Logos. In Paul, the dynamic principle that effectuates the outcome of salvation is the grace of God. The answer is that the dynamics of the salvific event are such that they must correspond to the issue at hand, namely the power of sin, understood – as we said earlier – as an ontological separation between God and humanity. If the power of sin is such that it is humanly impossible to overcome this deathly power, then it is crucial that God’s initiative is such that it actually can overcome and save a person from that power. Because only God can initiate and because only God has the power to initiate the overcoming of the ontological gap, that initiative is best described as a gift of God to humanity, hence as divine grace.31 There are several Pauline passages in which Paul expresses the significance of grace as a vital aspect of salvation. There is of course the reference in Rom. 3:24, that we are justified as a gift by God’s grace by the redemption in Jesus Christ (δικαιούμενοι δωρεὰν τῇ αὐτοῦ χάριτι διὰ τῆς ἀπο­ λυτρώσεως τῆς ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ). In Rom. 5:1, 15, 17, 20 and 21, Paul emphasizes the significance of grace in relation to the theme of justification. Moreover, in Rom. 6:14–15, the apostle uses the important expression (ὑπὸ χάριν), “to be under [the power of] grace,” which is philologically a parallel construction and theologically the corresponding opposite of the expression “to be under [the power of] sin” (ὑφ᾿ ἁμαρτίαν) in Rom. 3:9 and Gal. 3:22. In short, I am proposing that the opposite poles of Paul’s soteriology are to be under the power of sin (as the plight) or to be under the power of grace (as the solution). It is crucial to note that Paul does not juxtapose “to tion and Early Christian Liturgical Texts,” in: Studia Philonica Annual 9 (1997), 219– 238. 31  For a comprehensive study of the theme of grace in Paul, see Eastman, The Significance of Grace in the Letters of Paul. Why is grace the efficient cause in Paul? Cf. Landmesser, Wahrheit als Grundbegriff in der neutestamentlichen Wissenschaft, 302, 308– 309, grace is “keine verfügbare Qualität des natürlichen Menschen.” See also Karl Barth, Unterricht in der christlichen Religion. Dritter Band: Die Lehre von der Versöhnung/ Die Lehre von der Erlösung, 1925/1926. GA 38, Zurich: Theologischer Verlag 2003. Barth explains grace in these terms, 281: “Die Gnade des Gnadenstandes ist Wahrheit, und die Gnade genügt für den Gegenstand… Gnade [ist] eben Gnade… ihr Korrelat der Sünder, nicht ein Nicht-Sünder” (the grace of the state of grace is truth, and grace is sufficient for the object … Grace [is] just grace … its correlate the sinner, not a non-sinner).

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be under sin” with “to be under the law.” The Apostle makes the connection between God’s grace that was given in Christ Jesus also elsewhere. In 1 Cor. 1:4 Paul points out that he thanks God “because of the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus.” In Gal. 2:21 and 5:4 Paul makes a further explicit connection between God’s grace and the salvific purpose of the life of Jesus. The Final Cause.  For Aristotle, the final cause is the answer to the “why” or the final end (τέλος) of the origin and movement of a cause (cf. 983b). For Philo, as we saw in his explanation of the causes of creation, this final cause is God’s goodness. Now for Paul, the final cause of salvation can be determined to be the love (ἀγάπη) of God. The most compelling reference is Rom. 5:8, Paul’s assertion that “God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us” (cf. 5:5). This divine love is so strong, Paul reminds his readers in Rom. 8:35 and 39, that nothing can separate those in Christ form that love. Hence, in 2 Cor. 13:11, Paul even once calls God “the God of love.” Summary.  As the last reference to “the God of love” suggests, there is a correlation between the formal and final cause (God and love) and the material and instrumental cause (the grace performed through Jesus the Christ). In short, then, we can conclude that – based on our analysis of the four categories of (Aristotelian) causes – for Paul, the means of salvation is God’s (formal cause) love (final cause) as an act of grace (instrumental cause) in Jesus Christ (material cause). In this scheme, the answer to our initial question of the cause(s) of salvation is thus evident. Paul conceives the cause of salvation to be God, but in such a manner that this one cause or means consists of four causes conjointly. Suffice to mention here, before I will return to it at the end of this chapter, that to read Pauline soteriology in Aristotelean terms is not the same as claiming that Paul deliberately conceived of soteriology in such terms. Unlike Philo, Paul did not self-consciously draw on philosophy to explicate complex questions about soteriology in the context of a new hermeneutical horizon.

5.5 Death Jesus was dead.  All the gospels record the death of Jesus by way of crucifixion under the guard of the Roman soldiers.32 According to Mark 15:34 32  For an extensive study, cf. Alexander J. M. Wedderburn, The Death of Jesus. Some Reflections on Jesus-Traditions and Paul. WUNT 299. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2013.

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(cf. Matt. 27:46) “at three o’clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani’?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Luke has Jesus utter different last words. In Luke 23:44 we read: “then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, ‘Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.’ Having said this, he breathed his last.” The version of the Fourth Gospel is different yet again from the synoptics. In John 19:30 we are informed that “when Jesus had received the wine, he said, ‘It is finished.’ Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.” There is no doubt that Jesus’ cry of dereliction is “a theologically pregnant description”33 of Jesus’ impending death and its meaning for himself and his followers. I would not go as far as saying that despite his last words, there seems no indication that “he knows that his death will bring redemption or atonement or even that it will somehow benefit others.”34 My own take is that the words as recorded in Mark and Matthew are the most likely words uttered by Jesus at his death. In this I follow Moltmann and Bultmann.35 Precisely because the outcry “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani” has such a terrible and hopeless ring to it, and thus seems unfitting for a crowning statement of the dying Jesus, may it in fact be closest to the historical reality. This difficult reading may thus be the most probable. At any rate, beyond the question of what the historical Jesus did utter as his last words, the interpretation of the words recorded in the gospels is of significance for our attempt to understand Paul. Jesus’ desperate outcry “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” has a direct correlation with our understanding of salvation in Paul. In this regard, Jesus’ final lament was his realization that the Father had taken from him his divine nature. If we believe in the dual nature of Jesus of Nazareth – as Chalcedon later stipulates: at the same time fully human and fully divine – even during his lifetime, then it follows that for Jesus’ death to correlate with the human plight of the power of sin, he must have died only as human being. Sin and death are a human issue and not an issue for a divine nature.36 It is See also the still excellent discussion of sin and death in Paul by J. Christiaan Beker, Paul the Apostle: The Triumph of God in Life and Thought. Philadelphia: Fortress Press 1980, 213–234 and the monumental study by Martin Hengel, “Das Begräbnis Jesu bei Paulus und die leibliche Auferstehung aus dem Grabe,” in Friedrich Avemarie, and Herman Lich­tenberger (eds), Auferstehung – Resurrection. WUNT 135. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2001, 119–189, here 129–138. Hengel notes, 130, that Paul’s reference to καὶ ὅτι ἐτάφη in 1 Cor. 15:4 serves to underscore the reality of death, namely that Jesus was “mausetot.” 33 Wedderburn, The Death of Jesus, 90. 34 Wedderburn, The Death of Jesus, 90, paraphrasing the position of Alistair Kee. 35  Cf. Wedderburn, The Death of Jesus, 97, notes 39 and 40. 36  This much is true even in Anselm’s satisfaction theory of atonement. Theological-

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possible for Jesus to have avoided his agonizing death at the very last moment. After all, Jesus was contemplating it.37 He prayed (Mark 14:36): “‘Abba, Father,’ he said, ‘everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will’.” Here, Jesus addressed his Father, affirms his omnipotence, and utters the request that his impending agonizing death be taken away from him. But in all this he submitted to the Father’s will. That last will entailed that Jesus should die only as a human being; God the Father took away his divine nature at the very last moment.38 In Paul, we find more than a trace or coincidental parallel to the Father emptying the son of his divine nature the moment before his death. In the famous Christ-hymn in Phil. 2, we read the following: 5 6 7 8

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God (ὃς ἐν μορφῇ θεοῦ ὑπάρχων), did not regard equality with God (τὸ εἶναι ἴσα θεῷ) as something to be exploited, but emptied himself (ἀλλ’ ἑαυτὸν ἐκένωσεν), taking the form of a slave (μορφὴν δούλου λαβών), being born in human likeness(ἐν ὁμοιώματι ἀνθρώπων γενόμενος). And being found in human form (καὶ σχήματι εὑρεθεὶς ὡς ἄνθρωπος), he humbled himself (ἐταπείνωσεν ἑαυτὸν) and became obedient to the point of death (γενόμενος ὑπήκοος μέχρι θανάτου) – even death on a cross (θανάτου δὲ σταυροῦ).

This is not the place to have a detailed discussion of this hymn as there already exist a plentiful number of studies. For our immediate purposes, the key point is that even Paul, conceivably taken over an early Christian hymn, seems to emphasize the humanity of Jesus to the point of death (Phil. 2:8). To be fair, to say that Jesus was in the form of God (ἐν μορφῇ θεοῦ) but emptied himself (ἀλλ’ ἑαυτὸν ἐκένωσεν), presumably his divine form, is not the same as the Father taking away the divine nature of his son in the immediate moment preceding death. And yet, whether Jesus forfeited his divine form or whether the Father took it away from him, amounts to the same: at death on the cross, Jesus died in only human form. There is, then, a strong sentiment in Paul that Jesus’ kenosis of his divine nature is of decisive importance. ly speaking – given the divine nature of Jesus – the (partial) death of God would be a conundrum, to say the least. 37  Cf. Matt. 26:42: “He went away a second time and prayed, ‘My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done’.” 38  Cf. Wedderburn, The Death of Jesus, 93.

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In the context of Pauline soteriology, and by extension our understanding of soteriology within the larger Christian tradition, it bears repetition to emphasize that if Jesus had died as both fully human and fully divine, he would have forfeited salvation for us sinners. Death as an exclusively human predicament required a correlation in that it had to be a human being that was able to overcome the issue (on that point, at least, Anselm was correct). Only as a human being could Jesus be fully “for us” because only as a human being was there the identification between Jesus and us. Death held only human beings in its grip, but not the divine nature. The claim that Jesus died only as a fully human and not as a divine being receives nearly irrefutable evidence in the way in which Paul, and other New Testament writers, speak of the mode of his resurrection. In short, Jesus had no part of his own resurrection. He could not raise himself. We will return to this point shortly. Death as End of Dasein.  In Heidegger’s analytic of Dasein, an important aspect is Dasein’s relation to its death. Death is itself “the ontologically constitutive state of Dasein’s potentiality-for-Being-a-whole” while “death is only in an existentiell Being toward death [Sein zum Tode].39 In other words, “Dasein’s existentiality is temporality” as experienced in its everydayness. At the end of its temporality, when in death Dasein “stands before itself” in “the possibility of no-longer-being-able-to-be-there.” In this standing, “all its relations to any other Dasein have been undone. This ownmost non-relational possibility is at the same time the uttermost one.”40 In view of the temporality of Dasein in its death, Heidegger somehow elevates care [Sorge] as “the totality of the structural whole of Dasein’s constitution”41 above the other existential structures and thereby determines that care is the “Grundmodus vom Sein des Daseins (the basic mode of the being of Dasein).”42 In other words, our fear of death is ontologically, hence existentially, encoded in our very being and shapes us throughout our lives.43 We know that our life will have an end, but we do not know when or what it is. 39 Heidegger, Being and Time, 277. There is a brilliant, critical and sometimes hard to understand discussion of Heidegger on time and death in Emmanuel Levinas, God, Death and Time. Translated by Bettina Bergo. Stanford: Stanford University Press 2000, 7–117. 40 Heidegger, Being and Time, 294. 41 Heidegger, Being and Time, 276. 42 Landmesser, Wahrheit als Grundbegriff in der neutestamentlichen Wissenschaft, 137. 43  Cf. Stanley J. Grenz, The Named God and the Question of Being. A Trinitarion Theo-Ontology. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press 2005, 113–114.

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As in Heidegger, for Paul, death is also the end of temporal existence.44 Death delineates the end of life and thereby marks the point at which a life of authenticity – in Paul’s thought, a life of faith in the Messiah – is no longer a possibility. But unlike Heidegger, for Paul death is not merely part of being’s existential structures without transcendental consequences. Death in Paul is always the disruption of a divine metanarrative through the act of Adam’s transgression. That act brought about the universality of sin and consequently the consciousness of finiteness, temporality, decay and death. As Hofius comments rightly: “einen anderen, d. h. einen von diesem Tod unterschiedenen ‘natürlichen’ Tod kennt Paulus nicht. Adams Sündenfall ist in der Sicht des Apostels der unerhörte Zwischenfall, der das Zum-Ziel-Kommen des Schöpfungsplanes Gottes verhindert hat” (Paul does not know another, i.e., a ‘natural’ death which is different from this death. Adam’s fall into sin is in the view of the apostle the unheard-of incident that prevented the completion of God’s plan of creation).45 Put differently, a death apart from the power of sin does not exist. Every person’s Dasein, embedded as it is in the ontological structures of finite existence, will be terminated at the point of death, but as the result of the power of sin. Death as Ultimate Enemy.  Because of the inescapable dominion of evil in and over our lives, theologically the power of sin, we are enslaved by the projection of death as a “reigning power.”46 As Paul insists in 1 Cor. 15:26: “the last enemy to be destroyed is death (ἔσχατος ἐχθρὸς καταργεῖται ὁ θάνατος).” Why does Paul speak of death as enemy? Death is our last enemy precisely because all life comes to a termination.47 Life and death are extreme opposites. In its absence of life, death is the antidote to life. As we age, death is our enemy in that for many people the anticipation of death includes the experience of intense physical, psychological and spiritual suffering. We fear death because of the inexorable emotional enormity of the unknown, the speculation about our future destiny and the fear of divine wrath and judgement. In the words of Ps. 89:49: 44  Cf. James A. Diamond, Jewish Theology Unbound, Oxford: Oxford University Press 2018, 122–143, for a discussion of death in the Hebrew Bible. Diamond notes, 122, that “death envelops the Bible.” 45 Otfried Hofius, “Die Adam-Christus-Antithese und das Gesetz,” in: Otfried Hofius, Paulusstudien. WUNT 51. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 1989, 81. 46  R. Gregory Jenks, Paul and his Mortality. Imitating Christ in the Face of Death. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns 2015, 189. 47  Cf. De Boer, Martinus C. “Tod, IV. Neues Testament,” in RGG 4 , 434: In the New Testament, death is understood as “Ableben des Körpers [als] das Ende der physischen Lebenskraft und bewirkt eine Trennung vom Leben mit den anderen Menschen und vom Leben im Angesicht Gottes.”

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“Who can live and never see death? Who can escape the power of Sheol?” Death is also the ultimate enemy because it separates human beings from God.48 The ultimacy of death is precisely in that life is cut off from community with God. To speak with Paul, in 1 Cor. 15:56 he notes that “the sting of death is sin” (τὸ δὲ κέντρον τοῦ θανάτου ἡ ἁμαρτία). I take the sting of death refers to our lives leading up to death with all its accompanying disintegration and destruction of life. Death has a sting, as the apostle says in 1 Cor. 15:53 because “this perishable body must put on imperishability (τὸ φθαρτὸν τοῦτο ἐνδύσασθαι ἀφθαρσίαν), and this mortal body must put on immortality” (τὸ θνητὸν τοῦτο ἐνδύσασθαι ἀθανασίαν). What Paul calls the perishability of our body, amounts in ontological terminology, to the keen awareness of our finite existence. As Heidegger would insist, the very knowledge of finiteness, linear temporality and death fills us with utmost sorrow (Sorge).49 The deeper our sorrow because of impending death, the more death becomes our enemy. Gadamer contends that our hermeneutic unfolding (hermeneutisches Geschehen) presupposes as such the finiteness of our human existence (setzt die Endlichkeit der menschlichen Existenz grund­sätzlich voraus). In the context of “the Beautiful,” Gadamer argues “der ‘Vorschein’ des Schönen scheint der menschlich-endlichen Erfahrung vorbehalten (the ‘pre-appearing’ seems to be reserved for our human-finite existence).50 It is quite telling that at the end of his monumental opus Wahrheit und Methode, Gadamer makes a profound connection between our finite human existence and the pre-appearing, or the anticipation, of the Beautiful. Drawing on Plato, who combines the Beautiful with the Good, Gadamer further argues that the appearing of the Good in the Beautiful is tied to the “inherent appearing” (zugehörigen Offenbarkeit) of 48  Cf. Otfried Hofius, “Mensch und Schöpfung nach dem Zeugnis des Römerbriefs,” in Exegetische und Theologische Studien, 91–104, here 92: “Der durch Adam in die Welt gekommene Tod ist der den Menschen von Gott trennende Tod.” 49  Cf. Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. New York: Harper and Row 1962, 294: Dasein’s “death is the possibility of no-longer-being-able-to-be-there. If Dasein stands before itself as this possibility, it has been fully assigned to its ownmost potentiality-for-Being. … This ownmost non-relational possibility is at the same time the uttermost one.” Heidegger emphasizes that our death is our utmost possibility in completing our Dasein in an authentic life, apart from God. Said otherwise, the acceptance of our own death as an existential decision belongs entirely to our life. Such a view is of course not that of Paul or the New Testament in general. Cf. Eberhard Jüngel, “Tod, VII. Dogmengeschichtlich und dogmatisch,” in RGG4 , 439–440. 50  Hans-Georg Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode. Grundzüge einer philosophischen Hermeneutik. Hermeneutik I. GW1. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 5th ed. 1986, 489.

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truth, ἀλήθεια.51 In the context of our discussion of death as the last enemy, we could say with Gadamer that our intuition of the appearing (Hervorscheinen) 52 of truth – in Paul, simply our faith in Christ – is a hermeneutical glimpse of the Beautiful, namely of the life to come after death. Faith, then, can move our horizon from fear (Sorge) to fulfillment. And that fulfillment of hope is a new ontology of life, where death has no more sting. When Paul speaks eschatologically in 1 Cor. 15:54, that “this perishable body puts on imperishability (ἀφθαρσίαν), and this mortal body puts on immortality (ἀθανασίαν),” he assumes that the power of sin and death have been completely abolished. The mortal body, the body at death, takes on “immortality.” The Greek term Paul employs is ἀθανασία. In terms of its etymology, ἀθανασίαν is an alpha privative, meaning literally “not-death.” By employing this term, Paul is hinting at the total triumph of God over sin and death. In his own words, in 1 Cor. 15:54–55: “‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’ ‘Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’.” God’s final and total victory has overcome θάνατος forever; in the life to come there will only be ἀθανασία.53

5.6 Resurrection Paul Tillich was right when he said that “there is no saving ontology, but the ontological question is implied in the question of salvation.”54 If we believe that salvation is the work of God through Jesus, then we must demonstrate how this is so. Tillich points in the right direction when he proposes that salvation is related to ontology. In other words, something in Jesus’ life had to happen on the level of ontology in order for salvation to become possible. Still, this does not mean that the saving aspect of soteriology is ontology as such, but rather the salvific moment is in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, who was raised from the dead by God as the Messiah for Israel and all humanity. Jesus being raised from the dead was the ontological event that marked his death and resurrection as salvific events. These

51 Gadamer,

Wahrheit und Methode, 484. Wahrheit und Methode, 486. 53  I agree with Beker, Paul the Apostle: The Triumph of God in Life and Thought, 229, that “a systematic doctrinal view of Paul’s thought on sin and death is impossible,” at least if we understand “systematic” as a fairly conclusive construct. 54  Paul Tillich, Biblical Religion and the Search for Ultimate Reality. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1955, 85. 52 Gadamer,

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events are salvific occasions because they correspond to our human predicament of sin and death. Jesus was raised from the dead.  The assertion that the “death and resurrection/exaltation of Jesus are the foundation of Paul’s theology”55 is beyond dispute. Without Jesus’ death there would be no resurrection, and how could Jesus’ be resurrected if he had not died in the first place. What is, however, extensively debated is what exactly Jesus’ death and resurrection mean, in what way they are correlated and why these events are salvific events. To this end, let us return to what I argued above, namely the claim that Jesus died only as fully human being, and not as a divine being. This claim has formidable evidence in the fact that Jesus had no part in raising himself from the dead. God raised Jesus.  When Jesus died, he was temporarily emptied of his divine nature. As such he died as only a human being. If this is so, then as a dead human being, Jesus was incapable to have anything to do with his own resurrection. Death as the completion of the power of sin means that the dead person is so utterly and completely cut off from life. The only way that Jesus could come back to life would be through the agency of another power, a power stronger than death itself. And this is precisely where Jesus’ resurrection originated: in the power of God the Father whose super-power was such that the power of sin and death was overcome and defeated and remained so into eternity. In 1 Cor. 15:15, Paul defends himself and other apostles that “we testified of God that he raised Christ” (ἐμαρτυρήσαμεν κατὰ τοῦ θεοῦ ὅτι ἤγειρεν τὸν Χριστόν).” In the extended context of 1 Cor. 15:1–20 Paul uses the passive of ἐγείρω nine times, always in the context of “Christ being raised from the dead.”56 That there is a resurrection of the dead is foundational premise of Paul’s convictional matrix rather than the conclusion he argues toward. Would he forfeit the premise of the resurrection of the dead, he would also surrender the premise that God raised Jesus from the dead, and ultimately

55  George W. E. Nickelsburg, “Resurrection (Early Judaism and Christianity)” in ABD 5, 684–691, here 688. For a general overview on the theme of the resurrection in the Hebrew Bible, Early Judaism and the New Testament, see Friedrich Avemarie and Hermann Lichtenberger (eds), Auferstehung – Resurrection. WUNT 135. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2001. 56  Otfried Hofius, “‘Am dritten Tage auferstanden von den Toten.’ Erwägungen zum Passiv ἐγείρεσθαι in christologischen Aussagen des Neuen Testaments,” in Paulusstu­ dien II, 202–214, argues against the majority view that the New Testament also uses the middle voice, that Jesus “is risen” in addition to the passive “he was raised.”

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betray the salvific work of God the Father in the Son Jesus Christ.57 In other words, everything is at stake. When Paul remarks that God raised Jesus from the dead, he means that God the Father raised Jesus from the dead, as two passages clearly demonstrate. Already in his first letter, Paul asserts that God raised his son. He exhorts the Thessalonians in 1 Thess. 1:9 “to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead – Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath that is coming” (καὶ ἀναμένειν τὸν υἱὸν αὐτοῦ ἐκ τῶν οὐρανῶν, ὃν ἤγειρεν ἐκ [τῶν] νεκρῶν, Ἰησοῦν τὸν ῥυόμενον ἡμᾶς ἐκ τῆς ὀργῆς τῆς ἐρχομένης). The relative clause ὃν ἤγειρεν ἐκ [τῶν] νεκρῶν (“whom [namely the Son] he [namely God] raised from the dead”) points evidently to the conclusion that God must be the Father of the Son. In Gal. 1:1 the apostle says it in exactly those terms: “Paul an apostle – sent neither by human commission nor from human authorities, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead” (ἀλλὰ διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ καὶ θεοῦ πατρὸς τοῦ ἐγείραντος αὐτὸν ἐκ νεκρῶν). In the letter to the Romans, Paul likewise holds the same consistent belief. For example, in Rom. 6:4 he asserts that “Christ was raised from the dead (ἠγέρθη Χριστὸς ἐκ νεκρῶν) by the glory of the Father,” in In Rom. 7:4 he speaks of “him [Christ] who has been raised from the dead (ἐκ νεκρῶν ἐγερθέντι),” and in Rom. 8:34 refers to “Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised (Χριστὸς [Ἰησοῦς] ὁ ἀποθανών, μᾶλλον δὲ ἐγερθείς).”58 But what about the role of the Holy Spirit in the resurrection of Jesus? Paul does not explicitly point to the involvement of God’s Spirit in raising Jesus from the dead. The only passage that may suggest a role of the Spirit is Rom. 8:11: “if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you” (εἰ δὲ τὸ πνεῦμα τοῦ ἐγείραντος τὸν Ἰησοῦν ἐκ νεκρῶν οἰκεῖ ἐν ὑμῖν, ὁ ἐγείρας Χριστὸν ἐκ νεκρῶν ζῳοποιήσει καὶ τὰ θνητὰ σώματα ὑμῶν διὰ τοῦ ἐνοικοῦντος αὐτοῦ πνεύματος ἐν ὑμῖν). As the context suggests, Paul is speaking equally about the Spirit of God (πνεῦμα θεοῦ) and the Spirit of Christ (πνεῦμα Χριστοῦ), both of whom he mentions in Rom. 8:9. The crucial phrase is διὰ τοῦ ἐνοικοῦντος αὐτοῦ 57 Cf. Gerhard Sellin, “Auferstehung. I Auferstehung der Toten. 4. Neues Testament,” in RGG4 , vol.  1, 918. 58  The conviction that God raised Jesus from the dead is standard in the New Testament. See for example Acts 2:24, 32; 3:15, 26; 4:10; 5:30; 10:40; 13:30, 33, 34, 37 and 2 Tim. 2:8: “Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a descendant of David – that is my gospel,” (μνημόνευε Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν ἐγηγερμένον ἐκ νεκρῶν, ἐκ σπέρματος Δαυίδ, κατὰ τὸ εὐαγγέλιόν μου).

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πνεύματος ἐν ὑμῖν, namely that the indwelling Spirit will also be involved in raising the Romans’ mortal bodies, presumably at the Parousia when the dead in Christ will be raised. The Spirit’s role in the resurrection of the dead is not the same, however, as the Father’s raising his Son from the dead. At any rate, of main importance in the unfolding of salvation is that the Father resurrected the Son. He called him out of death by his power, as Eph. 1:19–20 indicates: “and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us (καὶ τί τὸ ὑπερβάλλον μέγεθος τῆς δυνάμεως αὐτοῦ εἰς ἡμᾶς) who believe, according to the working of his great power (κατὰ τὴν ἐνέργειαν τοῦ κράτους τῆς ἰσχύος αὐτοῦ). 20 God put this power to work in Christ (ἐνήργησεν ἐν τῷ Χριστῷ) when he raised him from the dead (ἐγείρας αὐτὸν ἐκ νεκρῶν) and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places.” The author of Ephesians leaves no doubt that Jesus had no part in his own resurrection. By employing the nouns δύναμις, ἐνέργεια, κράτος and ἰσχύς as well as the verb ἐνεργέω, the author radically condenses and thereby emphasizes the unquestionable power of God59 in raising the Son. This divine power was put “to work in Christ,” that is to say, for him, for his resurrection. None of the divine powers was available to Jesus when he was dead so that he could have had any part in his own resurrection. As a brief aside, one would expect that the language of church liturgy would follow Paul on something as central to the Christian faith as the resurrection. Paul seems crystal clear on the point that God raised Jesus from the dead. However, the common Easter greeting pronounced around the world on Easter Sunday – “He is risen,” and the response, “He is risen indeed,” – can give the misleading impression as if Jesus raised himself. Thus, strictly and theologically speaking, it would be far more correct to say, “He was raised (and is alive),” with the response, “God raised him indeed.”60 Jesus was resurrected as a human being.  In 1 Cor. 15:20–21 Paul makes clear: “in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits (ἀπαρχή) of those who have died. 21 For since death came through a human being (δι’ ἀνθρώπου), the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being (δι’ ἀνθρώπου).” The apostle hints at here what he will further explicate in the letter to the Romans. In Rom. 5:12, Paul affirms that “sin came 59  Rudolf Schnackenburg, Der Brief an die Epheser. EKK 10. Zurich: Benzinger Verlag 1982, 74–75, speaks of “Gottes überlegene Kraft” and “gewaltige Macht.” 60  A similar ambiguity is in the two German words Auferweckung and Auferstehung. The first denotes passively a “being woken up” while the second refers actively “to rising up.” In the context of the resurrection of Christ, Auferweckung is the theologically more accurate term.

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into the world through one man (δι’ ἑνὸς ἀνθρώπου)” and, as Rom. 5:19 stipulates, because of “the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners (διὰ τῆς παρακοῆς τοῦ ἑνὸς ἀνθρώπου ἁμαρτωλοὶ κατεστάθησαν οἱ πολλοί).” The antidote to the one person who brought about sin and whose act marked all people existentially as sinners, is that “by the one man’s obedience (διὰ τῆς ὑπακοῆς τοῦ ἑνὸς61) the many will be made righteous” (δίκαιοι κατασταθήσονται οἱ πολλοί). Paul assumes without doubt that Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified, was the one ἄνθρωπος through whom God made the many righteous. 62 Paul’s emphasis of the humanity of Jesus thus becomes the christological fulcrum for all subsequent theological refinement. For salvation to be possible, Jesus had to meet the human plight of the power of sin. As a human plight, Jesus’ salvific act had to correspond on the human level. 63 It is instructive to recall that during his lifetime Jesus reportedly raised three people from the dead: the son of a widow (Luke 7:11–17), the daughter of Jairus (Luke 8:40–56) and his friend Lazarus (John 11). While alive, Jesus had the potential power to raise people from the dead, because of his divine nature, in addition to his human nature. Divine power to raise the dead was fully available to Jesus as a human being during his life on earth.64 But that same divine power was not available to him in his own death, for as we said, God his Father temporarily suspended Jesus’ divine nature and with it any access to divine power. The suspension of Jesus’ divinity was temporal. At least according to the gospel of Luke, Jesus seems to have regained his divine nature immediately after his resurrection. In Emmaus Jesus vanished from the sight of his hosts (Luke 24:30) and when he appeared to the disciples “Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’ They were starThere are a few variant readings (D *, F, G; Ir) that add ἀνθρώπου for clarification. Cf. 1 Tim. 2:5–6: “there is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind (εἷς καὶ μεσίτης θεοῦ καὶ ἀνθρώπων), Christ Jesus, himself a human being (ἄνθρωπος Χριστὸς Ἰησοῦς), who gave himself a ransom for all” (NRSV, translation slightly altered). 63  Cf. Rom. 8:3: “For God… by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh (ὁ θεὸς … ὁμοιώματι σαρκὸς ἁμαρτίας καὶ περὶ ἁμαρτίας κατέκρινεν τὴν ἁμαρτίαν ἐν τῇ σαρκί).” See the perceptive comments on this verse by Otfried Hofius, “‘Sünde’ – ‘Gesetz’ – ‘Gnade’,” in Exegetische und Theo­ logische Studien, 171–172, here note 51: “Christus ist in der Inkarnation ein wahrer und wirklicher Mensch und darin den von Adam herkommenden Menschen gleich geworden, aber er bleibt auch als der Menschgewordene der wesenhafte Sohn Gottes, der nicht der Macht der Sünde verfallen und nicht von der Sünde gezeichnet ist.” 64  Cf. in John 6:39–40 Jesus says of himself that he will raise (the dead) in the last day (ἀναστήσω αὐτὸν ἐγὼ [ἐν] τῇ ἐσχάτῃ ἡμέρᾳ). 61 

62 

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tled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost” (Luke 24:36– 37, cf. John 20:19, 26).” Whatever we make of the historicity of these appearances, from a theological point – going deliberately beyond both the gospel narratives and Paul – we must uphold that after the resurrection Jesus’ divine nature was fully restored. The post-resurrection Jesus has become the resurrected and living Messiah. Jesus’ resurrection defeated sin and death.  If there would be only one thing that defines the hallmark of the Christian faith it would be undoubtedly the resurrection of Jesus, the Messiah. No matter how we think of the life of Jesus, his healing ministry, his embracing of the other, his proclamation of the kingdom of God, his unspeakable suffering and violent death on the cross – all of this would have been incomplete were it not for the resurrection from the dead. Without exaggeration or understatement, if there were no resurrection from the dead, Jesus’ entire life on earth would be an admirable life of an individual human being – but it would not have been salvific in the least. It is not always wise to make absolute claims about Paul’s theology, but in the case of the resurrection, I think, we are allowed to do so. Paul formulated a grand premise in 1 Cor. 15:12, in response to some members of the Corinthian church who held the position: “how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? (πῶς λέγουσιν ἐν ὑμῖν τινες ὅτι ἀνάστασις νεκρῶν οὐκ ἔστιν;). Paul’s view was of course the opposite. The hope of the resurrection was integral to Pharisaic piety65 and most likely wholeheartedly embraced by Paul during his days as a Pharisee.66 Paul of course argues in 1 Cor. 15 that because Christ has been raised from the dead, therefore it follows that there must be a resurrection of the dead.67 Toward the end of chapter 15 Paul has finally arrived at his conclusion that “death has been swallowed up in victory” (1 Cor. 15:55) and the sting of death, sin, has been defeated and overcome. In a later context that reflects the Pauline ideas of 1 Cor. 15 we find a succinct summary in 2 Tim. 1:10 “but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Saviour Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (φανερωθεῖσαν δὲ νῦν διὰ τῆς ἐπιφανείας τοῦ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ, καταργήσαντος μὲν τὸν 65 

Cf. Josephus, Bell. 2:163–166, Ant. 13:14; Mark 12:18–27. Christfried Böttrich, “Die Auferstehung der Toten,” in Paulus Handbuch, 461–471, here 461. 67  Cf. the excellent discussion of Otfried Hofius, “Die Auferstehung der Toten als Heilsereignis. Zum Verständnis der Auferstehung in 1 Kor 15,” in Exegetische Studien, 102–131. 66 Cf.

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θάνατον φωτίσαντος δὲ ζωὴν καὶ ἀφθαρσίαν διὰ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου). The appearing of the saviour who abolished death, is an echo of the more accurate Pauline view that God raised Jesus from the dead. The end is all the same: in the resurrection death and sin were abolished, once and for all, eternal life (potentially) inaugurated and with it the immortality of a transformed mode of being. Paul’s grand conclusion is that the resurrection constitutes the salvific event par excellence. 68

5.7  The Meaning of Salvation Regarding the meaning of Jesus’ salvific death “one is left with a feeling of incompleteness if one has only described what various New Testament writers have said about this theme, in all its seeming strangeness and unfamiliarity; without asking the question ‘What, if anything, does this mean for me and my contemporaries?’, as opposed to what the New Testament authors meant when they spoke of Jesus’ death.”69 I agree with Wedderburn. The exegetical and theological questioning must always be conscious of the larger hermeneutical circle. We do not get at the heart of the meaning of salvation unless we penetrate it existentially and ontically. To be sure, on the surface, understanding Jesus’ death may seem nothing more than a description of what the New Testament says in its various kaleidoscopic expressions, including those of Paul. This is merely the exegetical level. From a hermeneutical perspective, Bultmann is quite right that “Tod und Auferstehung Christi sind danach kosmische Ereignisse, nicht einmalige Vorkommnisse, die in der Vergangenheit liegen (“the death and resurrection of Christ are cosmic events, and not one-time occurrences in the past”).”70 To understand the meaning of salvation, we must go beyond the descriptive elements and further discover, as Bultmann would say, how the kerygma addresses us. We are now exploring the meaning of such fundamental terms and concepts as being saved by God’s grace, what it entails to speak of God’s righteousness or what the language of being justified means. 68  Hofius, “Die Auferstehung der Toten als Heilsereignis,” 110: “Die Auferstehung der Toten ist bei Paulus als ein Heilsereignis und nur als ein Heilsereignis verstanden” (Paul understands the resurrection of the dead as an event of salvation and only as an event of salvation). 69 Wedderburn, The Death of Jesus, VIII. 70  Rudolf Bultmann, Theologie des Neuen Testaments. UTB 630. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 9th ed. 1984, 299.

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Grace We indicated several times in this study that the works of Torah, or a new Christian Torah, or natural law or any other law code cannot address the human plight of the power of sin because of the categorical disconnection between plight and solution. In short, no law and no good work can overcome the power of sin. To rephrase all of this: absolutely no human effort can abolish sin and death. There is no human possibility, strategy, virtue, category or any other prospect that can make steps towards the abolition of sin and death. There are no human ways leading to God. Salvation is out of the hands of human beings. Paul probably aims in this direction when he contrasts in Rom. 10:3 “the righteousness that comes from God,” with those seeking to establish their own” (τοῦ θεοῦ δικαιοσύνην καὶ τὴν ἰδίαν [δικαιοσύνην]).71 The term Paul employs to express the idea of God’s grace is χάρις.72 Hofius defines it in these words: “die χάρις ist das göttliche ‘Ja,’ das das böse ‘Nein’ des Sünders überwindet” (χάρις is the divine ‘Yes’ that overcomes the evil ‘No’ of the sinner).73 But the divine ‘yes’ is not merely God’s good will and disposition towards human beings, but all the more his concrete provision for salvation. Divine grace is thus not simply a psychological comfort, but the empowerment for an ontological solution. Grace, as we saw above, is the instrumental cause of God effectuated in the death and resurrection of Jesus. For this reason, grace is the theological name for the divine power operative on the ontological level for our salvation. Paul uses the term χάρις in Rom. 3:24 and says that sinners “are now justified by his grace as a gift” (δικαιούμενοι δωρεὰν τῇ αὐτοῦ χάριτι). Here grace and justification are connected. The term δωρεὰν, “as a gift,” indicates that grace is not a human capacity but originates in the giver, in God the Father. In Rom. 5:15 Paul again describes God’s grace as a gift: “but the free gift (τὸ χάρισμα) is not like the trespass. For if the many died through the one man’s trespass, much more surely have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ (πολλῷ μᾶλλον ἡ χάρις τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ ἡ δωρεὰ ἐν χάριτι τῇ τοῦ ἑνὸς ἀνθρώπου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ), abounded 71  In Phil. 3:9 Paul says that he is in Christ and does not have his own righteousness (μὴ ἔχων ἐμὴν δικαιοσύνην), based on Torah. 72  In the New Testament χάρις occurs 155 times, in the authentic Pauline letters 66 times. For a succinct summary of grace in the Hebrew Bible see Hermann Spieckermann, “Gnade/Gnade Gottes. III. Altes Testament,” in RGG4 vol.  4, 1024–1025. 73  Otfried Hofius, “‘Sünde’ – ‘Gesetz’ – ‘Gnade’,” in Exegetische und Theologische Studien, 163–175, here 170.

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for the many.”74 The soteriological context is evident: God’s grace, itself a gift, is tied to the gift of grace that was provided in the one man Jesus Christ. In Rom. 5:16 Paul expresses it unambiguously: “but the free gift (τὸ δὲ χάρισμα) following many trespasses brings justification.” In the next verse, Rom. 5:17 Paul speaks once more of “the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness” (τὴν περισσείαν τῆς χάριτος καὶ τῆς δωρεᾶς τῆς δικαιοσύνης). This entire passage in Rom. 5 focuses on the interconnected ideas that God gives his grace, as a gift, and demonstrates that grace as a gift in his Son for righteousness, which is itself also a gift. The upshot of this emphasis on grace as a gift is further clarified in the deutero-Pauline passage in Eph. 2:8: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God” (τῇ γὰρ χάριτί ἐστε σεσῳσμένοι διὰ πίστεως· καὶ τοῦτο οὐκ ἐξ ὑμῶν, θεοῦ τὸ δῶρον). Here, too, the instrumental dative “by grace” is characterized as a gift, specifically the gift of God. But the new element is the clause “and this is not of your own doing.” The expression τοῦτο οὐκ ἐξ ὑμῶν, literally “not from you” is then specified at the beginning of Eph. 2:9 as meaning “not the result of works (οὐκ ἐξ ἔργων). Grace appears precisely on the theolo­ gical horizon because human effort does not correspond to the requirement of salvation. Completely unmediated by any human effort, the origin of salvation is in God. God alone demonstrates his salvific power – by his will, mercy and love – and is alone the one who can extent this goodwill toward human beings and the cosmos.75 This alone is divine grace. And it is grace alone that is the powerful antidote to sin (cf. Rom. 5:20). Justification and Righteousness Paul remarks in Rom. 4:25 that Jesus “was raised for our justification (ἠγέρθη διὰ τὴν δικαίωσιν ἡμῶν).” For the apostle, the resurrection of Jesus was at the heart of justification. Whatever “justification” may mean to the wide spectrum of Pauline scholars, the one thing that is beyond negotiation is that it is dependent on, or the consequence, of the death and resurrection of Jesus. I have no intent of engaging “the huge mass of scholarly 74  I agree with Alan F. Segal, “Universalism in Judaism and Christianity,” in Troels Engberg-Pedersen (ed), Paul in His Hellenistic Context. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 1995, 1–30, here 24, that Paul is not offering “two different views of salvation – one for Jews by means of the law, another for Gentiles by means of Christ.” 75  Cf. Dieter Sänger, “Gnade/Gnade Gottes. III. Neues Testament,” in RGG 4 vol.  4, 1025–1027, here 1026: grace is “das jeder menschlichen Initiative zuvorkommende Heilshandeln Gottes” (God’s salvific work that precedes all human initiative).

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literature on the meaning of God’s righteousness,”76 except a few comments of my own. So, what about justification and righteousness? Part of the problem is semantic, at least in English.77 Both English words “justification” and “righteousness” and their cognates derive from the semantic domain of the root δικαί-. This Greek root in the Septuagint and the New Testament is based on the translation of the Hebrew ‫צדקח‬. Any translation into a modern language must thus consider the semantic range of a key biblical idea that was shaped by Hebrew and Greek nuances. The semantic issue is that the English words “justification” and “righteousness” derive from the same root, even though they are phonetically and conceptually distinct. There are both affinities and dissimilarities. To say that someone or something is “just” or “right” is nearly synonymous, but to say that something is a matter of “justification” or “righteousness” is quite different. Most often, the word “justification” invokes a (negative) sentiment of justifying, defending, rationalizing and even excusing a matter.78 But “righteousness” seems more neutral and invokes a (positive) sentiment of justice, fairness, legitimacy and integrity. What does this philological picture mean for our understanding of salvation? The idea that God justifies or offers justification does not mean that sin and death can be justified. They are the ontological straitjacket enslaving human existence and slowly whittling away at life. There is nothing that can be justified. Sin and death are the cause of all destruction of life and can never be justified. Their existence and destructive force cannot be vindicated. At best we can suggest that sin and death are a-privative entities, in the Aristotelian sense, just as sight is the primary condition and blindness the privation. Sin is the privation of the initial goodness of the created order, and death is the privation of life and endpoint of the created order interrupted by sin. The idea that God justifies or offers justification does also not mean that God himself is stuck in a position where he must justify his actions, or even 76  N. T. Wright, Justification. God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision. Downers Grove: IVP Academic 2009, 64. 77  Cf. Wright, Justification, 88. 78  The German word “Rechtfertigung” has the same negative connotation. Hence, to call Pauline soteriology “Rechtfertigungslehre” is, in my view, problematic; cf. Paulus Handbuch, 347. Better would be an expression such as “die Lehre von der Gerechtigkeit Gottes.” Regarding the word “Versöhnungslehre,” see Käsemann, Ernst. “Erwägungen zum Stichwort ‘Versöhnungslehre im Neuen Testament’,” in Erich Dinkler (ed), Zeit und Geschichte. Dankesgabe an Rudolf Bultmann zum 80. Geburtstag. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck) 1964, 47–59.

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himself. Justification does not put God in a place of theodicy. The entire spectrum of Jewish-Christian theology during the second Temple period assumed that God’s ways are above human understanding 79 and that the being of God is a mystery. For Paul, then, his soteriological reflection respects the mystery of God and does not postulate that somehow God must justify himself vis-à-vis human beings. To repeat, the foundation of justification is the resurrection. Without Jesus’ resurrection from the dead there would be no resurrection and therefore no justification or righteousness for the rest of humanity. But exactly, what is justified or made righteous in the resurrection, what is the element of justification in the resurrection? Any answer must entail the following: since resurrection leaves behind both the power of sin and death, it cannot be the case that either sin or death are now retrospectively somehow justified. It cannot be the case that, now that Jesus is alive and has left death behind, God can look back at it and overlook, play down or otherwise excuse that which in the first place is the cause of evil, estrangement, suffering and utter destruction. It cannot, moreover, be the case that God is bizarrely exercising his good and merciful side and simply ignore or forget what is left behind because he has his Son back in triune contentment. A happy divine end is not an option either. All said and done, justification can never mean that God justifies human sin and all its ugly outgrowth in terms of the various deeds of sin. Moreover, in an ethical sense, sin cannot be rationalized because justification would require that human beings are responsible to have brought upon themselves the condition of sin and death. Justification requires that there is a precondition that necessitates a person to be responsible for overcoming such a condition. But in what way can we seriously propose that human beings are the agents of an ontological predicament that is both personal and universal? They are not. Notwithstanding of how we interpret Pauline and other biblical references where sin in the singular is declared a culpable human offense, punishable by (eternal) death,80 there is a phenomenological discrepancy between every person’s ontic experience of life, our understanding of hermeneutics and the limits of biblical interpretation. Even our conception of the character of God is at stake. We cannot 79 

Cf. Ps. 92:5, 139:17, Isa. 55:8–9, Micah 4:12. I do think that the phrase “justification theory” is inappropriate for a characterization of Pauline soteriology, both linguistically and conceptually, an expression critiqued by Douglas A. Campbell, The Deliverance of God: An Apocalyptic Reading of Justification in Paul. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 2009. For a condensed review of Campbell, see Westerholm, Justification Reconsidered, 87–94. 80 

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put God into a soteriological box from where he exercises his ruthless retributive judgement meted out by a determined forensic scheme. What’s more, all these elements are interwoven, such that one has an impact on the others. Righteousness, Justice, Fairness When it comes to Paul’s terminology and conceptualization of salvation, Westerholm wisely cautions that “Paul uses different pictures – to capture different aspects of salvation without trying to show that everything he wants to say can be included under any one picture.”81 In other words, we must be mindful to grant Paul the right to express himself in a multitude of ideas, terms and concepts, some tentative others more certain, to explain God’s salvific work. Although it may be tenuous, it seems prudent to discard the terms “to justify, justification.” They are not helpful when it comes to illustrate the notion of salvation and, judging from the mountain of studies, obfuscate more than illuminate. Instead, it may be more suitable to render the Greek root δικαί- by terms such as “righteousness” or terms such as “justice,” even “virtue” or “integrity” or “compassion” or “goodness” or “generosity.” Given the fact that biblical language is so deeply entrenched in the mind of scholars and laypeople alike, it may prove to be a sheer impossibility to make adaptations on the level of language. If changes are not espoused on the philological level, the least we must do then is to clarify salvation on the conceptual level. This is now our next task. Since Schleiermacher the question often discussed is the relation between christology and soteriology. Does soteriology precede christology or is it a consequence of christology? My theological position is the latter, though hermeneutically, as I argued above in chapter 1, Paul’s argument traverses on the hermeneutical circle in both directions, from plight to solution but also the converse. In relation to Paul, this is to say that even before Jesus the Messiah reconfigured his theological convictions, the underlying denominator of his thinking was Yahweh. In broad strokes we may say that for Paul the overarching theme, both before and after the inclusion of Jesus into his theological reconception of soteriology, was that God is generously disposed toward Israel and the rest of humanity. In other words, implicit in Paul’s thinking about God is that he is good, fair, benevolent and truthful toward Israel and all creation. In 81 Westerholm,

Justification Reconsidered, 70, note 14.

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Rom. 3:4, for example, Paul says plainly: ὁ θεὸς ἀληθής. The fact that the fall in Genesis 3 marked the great disruption of all life experiences did not alter Paul’s view that God is still fair and benevolent. The point is exactly that despite sin and sins, and the consequential existential suffering, the God of Israel is still the same, desiring the well-being for his creation. In a nutshell, salvation is God’s path to bring healing and restoration to the world and its peoples by means of his Son Jesus Christ. It we are willing to recognize God’s salvific path in such a wide framework, then the narrow focus on matters of terminology and painstaking exegetical detail becomes less contentious. As a cautious parallel to Paul, in an interesting and balanced study on salvation in Tannaitic literature, Philip Alexander suggests that “‘salvation’ is a vague term… [and] broadly speaking it denotes the supreme good (the summum bonum) to which humanity, individually or collectively, can attain, the state of blessedness in which the trials and tribulations of this life are transcended and the highest perfection is realized.”82 Without attempting to push Mishnaic traditions back onto Paul, suffice to note that conceivably Paul too had a pre-Damascus understanding of salvation that is later reflected in the pages of the Mishnah. Post-Damascus, God’s overall fairness and generosity, or in traditional Pauline language, the “righteousness of God” was expanded to include the coming of Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah. The understanding of Pauline salvation can be imagined along the lines suggested by Hofius. He concludes that the syntagma: “Gottes ‘Gerechtigkeit’ ist somit für Paulus nichts anderes als Gottes heilschaffende Gnade und Barmherzigkeit” (the ‘righteousness of God’ is for Paul nothing else but God’s salvific grace and compassion).83 Elsewhere he describes God’s righteousness as “seine ret-

82  Philip

S. Alexander, “Torah and Salvation in Tannaitic Literature,” in Donald A. Carson, Peter T. O’Brian and Mark A. Seifrid (eds), Justification and Variegated Nomism, vol.  1, 260–301, here 260. See also his concluding theses where he remarks that we must “remind ourselves constantly just how incongruous is the comparison of the letters of Paul with the Mishnah” (298). Moreover, Alexander concludes that salvation for the Tannaim “is essentially national” and not “overtly messianic” (300). He further notes that “Tannaitic Judaism can be seen as fundamentally a religion of works-righteousness, and it is none the worse for that. The superiority of grace over law is not self-evident and should not be simply assumed” (300). Cf. Friedrich Avemarie, Tora und Leben: Untersuchungen zur Heilsbedeutung der Tora in der frühen rabbinischen Literatur. TSAJ 55. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 1996. 83 Otfried Hofius, “Sühne und Versöhnung. Zum paulinischen Verständnis des Kreuzestodes Jesu,” in Paulusstudien, 33–49, here 36.

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tende Heilsmacht (his rescuing power for salvation).”84 Hofius’ interpretation takes full account of the larger context of God’s healing and restoration, without being stuck in a quibble about word studies and grammar. He does, however, say that δικαιοσύνη is a relational term indicating “die heilvolle Beziehung zu dem lebending Gott” (a salvific relationship with the living God), 85 and that in a twofold manner. First, from the perspective of God, the active form of δικαιόω signifies that God grants the salvific restoration, while second, the passive form δικαιοῦμαι, from the perspective of human beings, entails that they receive salvific healing. Along the same line, Wolfgang Kraus also offers a lucid definition of God’s righteousness. The syntagma means, he explains, “Gottes eigenes Wesen, das eben von ‘Gerechtigkeit’ durchdrungen ist, sich schaffend zum Vorteil der Menschen und der Schöpfung durchsetzt… ‘Gerechtfertigt-sein’ ist insofern ein Beziehungsbegriff: mit Gott Gemeinschaft haben” (God’s own being, which is permeated by ‘justice,’ which creatively asserts itself for the benefit of human beings and of creation… ‘Being justified’ is insofar a relational concept: having community with God).86 In sum, then, God’s salvific righteousness consists in providing the path that de facto enables healing restoration to his created order and enables human beings specifically to appropriate that healing path individually and collectively. Maybe God’s righteousness could be described as “God’s gracious and salvific fair-mindedness and embrace” for human beings and the cosmos. I understand Paul to hold the view that God is just, fair and benevolent to be a conditio sine non qua and the ground for God’s provision, by grace, that in the resurrection his divine goodness for healing and restoration was extended to all human beings and the cosmos. In a narrow sense, God’s righteousness or fairness is “ein Akt der Neuschöpfung” (an act of new creation) 87 or in Wright’s words, “the resurrection of the Messiah is, for Paul, the beginning of the entire new creation.”88 I would say more precisely the first act of the new creation, played out in a new ontological key. In this regard, one of the foundations of Pauline soteriology is summarized in Rom. 6:9 “We know that Christ, being raised from the dead 84 

Otfried Hofius, “Das Gesetz des Mose und das Gesetz Christi,” in Paulusstudien 50–74, here 51. 85  Otfried Hofius, “‘Extra nos in Christo.’ Voraussetzung und Fundament des ‘pro nobis’ und des ‘in nobis’ in der Theologie des Paulus,” in Exegetische und Theologische Studien, 133–152, here 136, note 20. 86  Wolfgang Kraus, “Die Kirche,” in Paulus Handbuch, 400–408, here 408. 87  Cf. Jörg Frey, “Gericht und Gnade,” in Paulus Handbuch, 471–479, here 478.” 88 Wright, Justification, 106.

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(Χριστὸς ἐγερθεὶς ἐκ νεκρῶν), will never die again (οὐκέτι ἀποθνῄσκει); death no longer has dominion over him (θάνατος αὐτοῦ οὐκέτι κυριεύει).” Because of God’s absolute power over death, and therefore sin, the Messiah was raised only once, as Paul says explicitly in the next verse, ἀπέθανεν ἐφάπαξ. There is no further need for Jesus to die again; God does not have to prove his absolute power over evil once more. Since Jesus “will never die again,” because death cannot come back and draw him once again into its clutches, or else because Jesus’ first death and resurrection were somehow lacking in something. The proof that the power of sin and death are defeated is that Jesus, unlike Lazarus, did not die a second death. Death “no longer has dominion over him.” Death itself is dead, sin is overpowered. The one divine act of the resurrection is entirely sufficient to inaugurate the new creation. In his justice or fair-mindedness or goodness God has definitively ordered that the potential for sin and death no longer exist. In other words, in the resurrection, the “unfair” ontological-existential state that disrupts earthly life and leads inescapably to death is no longer a final reality. It is defeated, overcome and removed from life. The total defeat of sin and death – a complete reality for Jesus and a partial one for human beings – will be for all human beings an exclusive eschatological event, a thought we will return to in the chapter 7. At this point, a short comment on N. T. Wright’s repeated suggestion that God’s righteousness “denotes the status that someone has when the court has found in their favor.”89 But what are the implied assumptions here, if courtroom language is indeed the appropriate background for understanding Paul’s idea of God’s righteousness? Typically, in a legal setting there is a trial that one person brings against another and a judge who, all evidence considered, declares a verdict. In our case, God is the judge, that much is clear. But who initiates the case, against whom, and what is the accusation? Who has wronged whom, what is the offence? Is it that sin accuses, or maybe Torah, or maybe a specific act of sin? Even though we may say that Paul thinks along these lines, these are abstract notions; a court case needs to be initiated by a human being. Wright specifies that “Paul’s point is that the whole human race is in the dock, guilty before God.”90 If so, God is both the plaintiff and the judge who announces the verdict. The defendants are excluded from the trial brought against them! Were the defendants even informed of a trail against them? It goes without 89 Wright,

90 Wright,

Justification, 90; original emphasis. Justification, 90.

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saying that such a trial would be considered invalid in any juridical setting that is worth its name. Let’s go one step further. What is the whole human race guilty of? What is the actual crime committed? What is the punishment? On the surface, in Paul’s reflections in Romans the reader would expect that the apostle is clear on what human guilt is. After all, he says that in Rom. 3:5–6 that “if our injustice serves to confirm the justice of God, what should we say? That God is unjust to inflict wrath on us? (I speak in a human way.) 6 By no means! For then how could God judge the world?” For Paul, what seems a settled question is that God judges the world, and he is not unjust to inflict wrath on human beings. But what is open-ended is the question what human guilt leads God to do so. The larger context of Romans 3–7 paints a colourful picture of the dynamic and interaction of sin and sins and the death sentence on all human beings. But still, what is the guilt of human beings before God? Paul is remarkably silent on the question of guilt!91 Sanders has perceptively noted that in Paul “the lack of the terminology of repentance and forgiveness” has often been observed by scholars, “but we should now add to this observation the lack of terminology for guilt in Paul.” For Sanders “this reinforces the point that Paul did not characteristically think in terms of sin as transgression which incurs guilt.”92 In a nutshell, Paul “does not deal with sin as guilt.”93 The reason why this is so, Sanders suggests, is that Paul’s “theory of life in Christ does not allow Paul to account adequately for sin as guilt.”94 By “theory of life” Sanders has nothing else in mind but the conceptual equivalent of righteousness. In his own words: “we have noted that dikaiosynē, which often leads to life, can becomes simply the equivalent of ‘life’,” 95 as for example in Gal. 3:21: “Is the law then opposed to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could make alive, then righteousness would indeed come through the law.” According to Sanders, we can thus read that “life would indeed come through the law” a position that Paul of course rejects. Sanders’ suggestion that righteousness can principally mean a leading to life, or even “life” is on the same line as my suggestion above to conceptu91 

The one exception is 1 Cor. 11:27, where Paul warns that “whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord.” A better translation for “answerable” would be “guilty.” Here Paul employs the adjective ἔνοχος, “guilty.” 92 Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 503. 93 Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 500. 94 Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 501. 95 Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 503; original emphasis.

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alize God’s “righteousness” as goodness, fair-mindedness, generosity or salvific embrace. For the result of all such “divine mindsets” is the same: in the end there is life – life for human beings and the entire cosmos. Where does that leave Wright and his claim that God’s righteousness denotes “the status”96 of being acquitted. Wright’s discussion of all aspects of Pauline thinking is anchored in his great metanarrative of “the singleplan-through-Israel-for-the-world”97 or more elaborately: “Paul’s view of God’s purpose is that God, the creator, called Abraham so that through his family he, God, could rescue the world from its plight,”98 or more plainly: God’s righteousness must be discussed “within the covenantal, eschatological and Christological train of Paul’s thought.”99 By and large I agree with Wright’s indefatigable reminder that Paul’s theological reflections have a “larger picture” perspective, that includes creation, the fall, Abraham, the covenant, Israel, Torah, the Messiah, Gentiles and the world to come. The issue, however, with promoting God’s righteousness as a declared status that “refers to the one who is in good standing within the covenant”100 seems problematic. We can argue against Wright’s view, as Westerholm does, and refute that righteousness means either a declared status of acquittal or covenant membership.101 But there is a much deeper issue at work here. The entire “declared status” position falls once we recognize that the issue is rooted in Wright’s disregard for the ontological distinction between sin and sins. In short, there is no court room trial, because there cannot be one! Gal. 3 – Wright’s context for discussion – unambiguously articulates the power of sin as the human predicament. Paul emphasized in Gal. 3:22 that “the scripture has imprisoned all things (τὰ πάντα) under the power of sin” (ὑπὸ ἁμαρτίαν). It we take Paul by his word, then τὰ πάντα includes “all things” both human beings and non-human, namely the rest of creation. While God may be able to have a trial against human beings, it makes no sense to speak of a trial and a verdict against creation and pronounce a verdict of acquittal. What is the crime and the guilt of creation? The answer is that neither creation itself nor human beings have committed a crime. A court trial is thus entirely inappropriate. As we have repeatedly pointed out in these pages, salvation requires that we understand precisely what the plight is, and what the corresponding 96 Wright,

Justification, 90, 135. Justification, 95. 98 Wright, Justification, 94; original emphasis. 99 Wright, Justification, 135. 100 Wright, Justification, 135. 101 Westerholm, Justification Reconsidered, 58–65. 97 Wright,

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categories are that can overcome and solve the plight. To say it once again: the plight is the power of sin (singular), and not sins (plural). Wright acknowledges that much when he comments that God’s single plan “always was to deal with sin and death that had infected the whole creation … [and offer] the divine answer in terms of the rescue provided by the Messiah.”102 But he equally upholds that “the Messiah, culminating in his death ‘for our sins’ … [means] taking upon himself the death which they [Israel] deserved.”103 So here is the crux of the matter: Jesus died for our sins, a death that we have deserved. If Jesus died for our sins, then yes, we are culpable because we have committed wrongful acts against God and his creation. But as I argued in the previous chapter, if the forgiveness of sins was the key issue, then Jesus did not have to die at all in the first place since Jewish priestly customs of atonement were in full operation at the temple. However, Jesus died to overcome the power of sin, as Wright also acknowledges. Sin did not need a courtroom vindication, for that cannot correspond to the solution! The only solution was to provide a new way, that is a new creation, that is a new ontological structure that would leave behind the old one, the “power of darkness” (Col. 1:13). No courtroom exoneration could provide that because the issue is not moral or legal but ontological. If we follow Wright, it seems to me, the inevitable irony of the courtroom scene is that human beings would be found guilty by their own creator – for being human beings! The salvific drama would be reduced to a divine puppet show: God creates human beings, drags them into his court, presides as the judge, pronounces them guilty, but declares that their status is one of pardon!

5.8  Reading Paul Philosophically The patient reader will by now have realized that examining Paul philosophically sheds a bright light on central aspects of his thinking. To suggest reading Paul in terms of a clear grasp of the required correlation between plight and solution, an understanding of the means of salvation – via Aristotle and Philo of Alexandria – and an examination of the question of atonement, we have arrived at a picture of Paul that is robust and enduring. This is not to claim that Paul himself was a philosophical exegete of scripture and Jewish thought on the level of Philo. But I am arguing that the 102 Wright, 103 Wright,

Justification, 132–133. Justification, 105.

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understanding of salvation presented in this chapter is a legitimate step beyond Paul, without going against Paul. At the same time, my views go against the grain of much of Pauline scholarship. Reading Paul philosophically was rejected by such thinkers as Tertullian, Luther and Barth and to this day is still frowned upon by a host of contemporary Pauline scholars. So be it. The key aspect to remember is that we are trying to understand scripture as recorded by the apostle Paul. In this book I am employing philosophy, to borrow an expression from Philo and Clement of Alexandria,104 as the handmaid of scripture. Put differently, philosophy and theology are not done for their own sake but for the sake of understanding scripture, in our case, the apostle Paul. From a hermeneutical entry point, the existential question, rediscovered by Heidegger for philosophy and made fruitful for biblical interpretation by Bultmann, is the most profound question to be asked to understand Paul. It is the question of being: our being in the relation to the Being who embraces his creation in salvific love. Bonhoeffer gives us glimpses of what these questions are:

“There is no ontological specification of that which is created that is independent of God being reconciler and redeemer, and human beings being sinners and forgiven (Sünder und Begnadigter).



In the Christian doctrine of being, all metaphysical ideas of eternity and time, being and becoming, living and dying, essence and appearance must be measured against the concepts of the being of sin and the being of grace (vom Sein der Sünde und der Gnade) or else must be developed anew in light of them.”105

104  Cf. Clement, Stromata 1:5: “accordingly, before the advent of the Lord, philosophy was necessary to the Greeks for righteousness. And now it becomes conducive to piety; being a kind of preparatory instruction (προπαιδεία) to those who attain to faith through demonstration. … Perchance, too, philosophy was given to the Greeks directly and primarily, till the Lord should call the Greeks. For this was a schoolmaster to bring ‘the Hellenic mind,’ as the law, the Hebrews, ‘to Christ.’ Philosophy, therefore, was a preparation, paving the way for him who is perfected (τελειούμενον) in Christ.” 105  Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Act and Being: Transcendental Philosophy and Ontology in Systematic Theology (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English 2). Translated by H. Martin Rumscheidt, edited by Wayne W. Floyd. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 1996, 151.

Chapter 6

Soteriology 2: The Mode of Salvation Die Wahrheit, um die es in der Theologie geht, ist die allein im Glauben zu gewinnende Eigentlichkeit des Daseins.1

In the previous chapter I argued for the vital difference between the means and the mode of salvation. We have adequately examined the former in chapter 5 and must now turn our attention to the mode of salvation. If by means of salvation we described how God initiated and provided in Jesus’ death and resurrection salvation for all humanity, our task is now to explore how the mode relates to the means of salvation. Precisely, what is the mode of salvation and what does it entail to claim that faith is the mode of salvation?

6.1  The Mode of Salvation The difference between the means and the mode of salvation is not just another hairsplitting, but ultimately irrelevant, delight in exegetical entertainment. The distinction is itself already entrenched in Paul’s thinking. In fact, it is one of the key Pauline characteristics that faith alone – and not Torah, or works of the Torah, or generally good works, or a new Christian ethic – is part of the soteriological pathway that God promised, initiated, carried out and completed in Jesus the Messiah. Whereas the means of salvation clarifies salvation from the divine side, namely how God as the agent of salvation concretely causes and makes salvation a possible reality, the mode of salvation illuminates the human side of God’s salvific action. Hofius offers a clear definition of the mode of salvation: “Der Glaube ist mithin der Modus des Heilsempfangs und der Heilsteilhabe” (faith is the 1  Christof Landmesser, Wahrheit als Grundbegriff neutestamentlicher Wissenschaft. WUNT 113. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 1999, 253.

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mode of receiving salvation and participating in salvation).2 Another way of expressing the mode of salvation is that faith is the active side of the human response to the means of salvation, to God’s opening up of the salvific path of grace in the resurrection of Jesus. But why is “faith” a mode and not part of the means of salvation? How is the mode of faith distinct form the four causes of the means of salvation? The answer, in short, is that the four causes are unified and have their locus in God’s being as agent of salvation whereas faith has its locus in a person and not in God. In other words, the four causes that are conjointly the one cause or means of salvation have their origin and inner coherence in God, Father and Son, while faith is – strictly speaking – not a matter for God, but for human beings. Paradoxically, as a human mode of response to the means of salvation, faith is (even though affected by God) necessarily outside of God and not a cause in the same manner as the four causes that we identified as the means of salvation. At this point a possible critique could be to see faith as a means of salvation, more precisely as the instrumental cause. It is deceptively simple to think that the instrument of a person’s salvation is faith. Indeed, Paul himself seems to give this impression when he remarks with seeming ease that we are saved “from” or “by” faith (cf. Rom. 1:16–17; 3:22, 28, 30). It is crucial, however, to understand that Pauline expressions such as ἐκ πίστεως, διὰ πίστεως or the dative of instrument τῇ πίστει do not have the sense of a conditional propter fidem (because of faith) but the modal sense per fidem (through faith) that describes the manner in which salvation is received.3 In other words, these Greek expressions do not constitute faith as a condition or prerequisite, and therefore as a means, for salvation as if faith were a human possibility. Even though faith is the subjective response to the objective salvific act of God in Jesus the Christ, it does not follow that faith is part of the “means” of salvation as we identified it above. Even though “caused” by God, faith is the modus operandi of a person’s receiving of salvation. Indeed, in 1 Cor. 2:5 Paul acknowledges that a person’s faith rests “in the 2  Otfried Hofius, “‘Extra nos in Christo.’ Voraussetzung und Fundament des ‘pro nobis’ und des ‘in nobis’ in der Theologie des Paulus,” in Exegetische und Theologische Studien, 133–152, here 141. 3  Cf. Hofius, “Wort Gottes und Glaube bei Paulus,” 172: Pauline expressions on faith do not refer to a “konditional gemeinten ‘propter fidem’, sondern sie haben den Sinn eines modalen ‘per fidem’, das die Art und Weise der Heilszueignung und Heilsaneignung beschreibt” ([faith is not a] conditionally meant ‘propter fidem,’ but it has the sense of a modal ‘per fidem,’ which describes the way of appropriation and acquisition of salvation).

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power of God” and not in human wisdom (ἡ πίστις ὑμῶν μὴ ᾖ ἐν σοφίᾳ ἀνθρώπων ἀλλ’ ἐν δυνάμει θεοῦ) and in Rom. 12:3 Paul refers to the “measure of faith” (ἑκάστῳ ὡς ὁ θεὸς ἐμέρισεν μέτρον πίστεως) that God has assigned each person (cf. Heb. 12:2). Although these Pauline references suggest that God initiates faith, they do not, however, contradict our view that faith is a mode and not a means of salvation. Even if a person’s faith is set in motion by God, this merely indicates that the origin of a person’s faith is located in God, but the act of faith itself is still located in the person. Further, since faith is only important and decisive for a person’s faith (and not “necessary” as such for God), the fact remains that faith is by its very nature the mode of salvation. There is, however, an even stronger argument for the view that faith is the mode of salvation. To state it in the most exact terms, faith cannot be the means of salvation because of the issue of sin. This brings us back to our earlier discussion of sin. Above in chapter 3 we defined the human plight in Paul as the power of sin, or in philosophical language, the ontological gap between God and humanity. The very nature of sin as an ontological separation necessitates that the overcoming of that gap can only be initiated and accomplished by God. Human efforts to overcome that ontological difference are categorically ineffective and indeed impossible. Here we find both the radicality of sin and the graciousness of God’s salvation. Thus “salvation” is entirely God’s work apart from human assistance. We have, therefore, a necessary correspondence between sin and salvation in that only God can provide the means of salvation. Only God’s “cause” or “means” was adequate to the task. In the strictest sense, then, faith cannot overcome sin as a means of salvation. Why not? Because the problem of sin, as we saw, is ontological but the nature of faith as such is not ontological. In other words, faith alone cannot save any person because there is no categorical correspondence between the ontology of sin and faith. Faith as a mode does not correspond to the issue of sin as an ontological human predicament because the elementary nature of faith is not ontological. Hence, faith cannot save by virtue of its nature; faith cannot defeat sin and death, it can only respond to that defeat. The consequence of our distinction between the means and mode of salvation is thus clear. We can only speak of salvation in the Pauline sense when both the means and mode of salvation cohere. The means and mode of salvation are the two sides of the one coin and cannot be separated. Hence, salvation is both salvific grace and faith. To disregard one entails giving up the other. Salvation is thus never merely the objective reality of

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God’s means of salvation or a person’s faith in some vague or automatic divine act that happened for humanity.

6.2  The Nature of Faith What does Paul say about faith? The New Testament employs the noun πίστις 243 times. In the authentic Pauline letters, it occurs 91 times, 40 of which are found in Romans alone. There is a wide scholarly consensus that the term has two basic meanings. πίστις can mean both faith and faithfulness. The first has the connotation of trust and expresses the human disposition towards God. The second meaning expresses truthfulness and is an attribute of God in relation to his creatures. Paul is a witness to both of these uses. In addition to the noun πίστις Paul also employs the verb πιστεύω. In the New Testament this word occurs a total of 241 time, in the authentic Pauline letters 42 times.4 Faith in God and God’s faithfulness. That πίστις points to God’s faithfulness is the key aspect of Rom. 3:3: “what if some were unfaithful (ἠπίστησάν)? Will their faithlessness (ἡ ἀπιστία αὐτῶν) nullify the faithfulness of God (τὴν πίστιν τοῦ θεοῦ καταργήσει)?” Paul juxtaposes that even though some Jews may have been unfaithful, or unbelieving, towards God’s promises, the faithfulness of God still stands.5 πίστις understood as faithfulness belongs to God’s being and is not changed, weakened or forfeited by an act of human unfaithfulness. In other instances, it is more difficult to ascertain what πίστις means. In Rom. 3:22 we read of “the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe” (δικαιοσύνη δὲ θεοῦ διὰ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ εἰς πάντας τοὺς πιστεύοντας). It is possible to interpret the expression διὰ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ in two ways. It may be understood as an objective genitive6 or subjective genitive.7 In the first case, Pauline phrases such as διὰ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ are interpreted by commentators within the larger 4  For an extensive discussion of the theme of faith in Jewish and Christian writings, see Jörg Frey, Benjamin Schliesser and Nadine Ueberschar (eds). Glaube. Das Verständnis des Glaubens im frühen Christentum und in seiner jüdischen und hellenistisch-römischen Umwelt. WUNT 373. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2017. 5  Cf. 2 Tim. 2:13: “if we are faithless, he remains faithful — for he cannot deny himself” (εἰ ἀπιστοῦμεν, ἐκεῖνος πιστὸς μένει, ἀρνήσασθαι γὰρ ἑαυτὸν οὐ δύναται). 6  For example, Otfried Hofius, “‘Wandeln im Glauben’ – ‘Wandeln im Schauen’? Zum Problem der Übersetzung und Auslegung von 2 Kor 5,7,” in Exegetische und Theologische Studien, 121–132, here 132. 7  For example, N. T. Wright, “The Letter to the Romans,” in The New Interpreter’s

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framework of Paul’s view of faith. For the apostle, faith is directed “to,” “in,” or “into” Jesus Christ. The subject are human beings, the object of their faith is Jesus Christ. The movement of faith goes from God’s salvific act to a person believing the truthfulness of that very act to trusting that its salvific truth is in Jesus Christ. Alternatively, as a subjective genitive, one may translate the expression as “through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ.” A similar ambiguity is present in Rom. 3:26, where Paul asserts that God “justifies the one who has faith in Jesus” (ἐκ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ). A subjective reading would be that God “justifies through the faithfulness of Jesus.” Outside of Romans, Paul employs similar constructions. In Gal. 2:16, Paul comments that “we know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ (διὰ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ). And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus (εἰς Χριστὸν Ἰησοῦν ἐπιστεύσαμεν), so that we might be justified by faith in Christ (δικαιωθῶμεν ἐκ πίστεως Χριστοῦ), and not by doing the works of the law, because no one will be justified by the works of the law.” Here Paul employs the noun πίστις two times and the verb once. The verb seems clear enough in that Paul suggests “to believe in Christ Jesus” in the sense that the object of our faith or trust is the Messiah Jesus. The meaning of the noun is more complex. It is possible that the prepositional phrases διὰ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ and ἐκ πίστεως Χριστοῦ are either subjective or objective genitives. If subjective, the meaning is that of the “faithfulness” of Jesus Christ, if objective “the faith in Jesus Christ.” Both meanings may also be present in Phil. 3:9, where Paul remarks that he wants to “be found in him, not having a righteousness (δικαιοσύνην) of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ (διὰ πίστεως Χριστοῦ), the righteousness from God based on faith” (τὴν ἐκ θεοῦ δικαιοσύνην ἐπὶ τῇ πίστει). While it is feasible to translate διὰ πίστεως Χριστοῦ as “through the faithfulness of Christ” in the sense that righteousness comes through the salvific work of God in his Son, the second expression τὴν ἐκ θεοῦ δικαιοσύνην ἐπὶ τῇ πίστει is best be understood as an objective genitive, in the sense that righteousness is based on faith in Christ. Whether these Pauline expressions διὰ πίστεως, ἐκ πίστεως and ἐπὶ τῇ πίστει must be interpreted as a subjective or objective genitive hinges on more than exegetical observations.8 Indeed, the hermeneutical clue for the Bible, ed. by Leander E. Keck et al. Nashville: Abingdon Press 2002, vol.  10, 395–770, here 470. 8  For a review of this discussion see Michael Wolter, “Die Wirklichkeit des Glaubens. Ein Versuch zur Bedeutung des Glaubens bei Paulus,” in Jörg Frey, Benjamin Schliesser and Nadine Ueberschar (eds). Glaube, 363–367.

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exegete is as much their larger contextual matrix than the narrow focus on a specific verse. In this regard, it is not surprising that a new perspective scholar prefers the subjective genitive, and old perspective scholars favour the objective reading. My own criteria are based on the distinction between the means and the mode of salvation. As argued above, the cause or the means of salvation is the work of God in Jesus the Messiah, while the mode is the manner of appropriating that salvific work and its outcome in faith. Predicated on that distinction, it is more accurate to prefer a genitive objective reading over a genitive subjective understanding. The reason is that “the faithfulness of Jesus Christ” is, strictly speaking, not a part of the salvific work of God as such. Even though it is true that Jesus was faithful in obeying his Father, even to the point on the cross, it is not true that the faithfulness of Jesus brings about righteousness, as some of the above Pauline references may suggest in a reading that prefers a subjective genitive. Those justified by faith are not justified because they believe that Jesus was faithful in obeying the Father, but because his faithfulness completed the entire work of salvation by eradicating sin and death in the resurrection.9 In other words, God’s faithfulness does not belong in the strictest sense to the means of salvation, but it belongs to the mode of salvation. This is a considerable difference. That said, I conclude with Hofius that “der Glaube ist seinem Wesen nach ‘Glaube an Jesus Christus’ (faith is by its very nature ‘faith in Jesus Christ’).”10 Hofius is merely saying what is the necessary conclusion of the distinction between the means and the mode of salvation: even though God proved his faithfulness to humanity in his Son Jesus Christ by making possible a means of salvation, as believers we are not saved by believing in that faithfulness, but by believing in Jesus Christ, specifically that his death and resurrection is efficacious “for us.” Faith required for Jews and Gentiles.  The apostle is lucid in his presentation that Abraham received salvation based on his faith. In Rom. 4:9 Paul writes that “faith was reckoned to Abraham as righteousness” (ἡ πίστις εἰς δικαιοσύνην). Here Paul speaks of faith as leading to righteousness. That is to say that faith is the path that was initiated in God’s salvific 9  Michael Wolter on “Glaube/Christusglaube” in Paulus Handbuch, 344, notes perceptively that “die Vertreter der Genitivus-subiectivus-Hypothese [sprechen] von Jesu ‘faith(fulnes)’ in einer Weise, als würde es sich um eine Wirklichkeit an sich und nicht um die Wirklichkeitannahme des Glaubens der glaubenden Menschen handeln” (the representatives of the subjective-genitive hypothesis [speak] of Jesus’ ‘faith(fulnes)’ in a way as if it were a reality in itself and not the reality of faith assumed by a person’s faith). 10  Hofius, “‘Wandeln im Glauben’ – ‘Wandeln im Schauen’?,” here 132.

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act, namely the healing embrace for sinful humanity and the cosmos, that Paul now retroactively pronounces over Abraham. In Gal. 3:6 Paul expresses the same thought: “Abraham ‘believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness’” (Ἀβραὰμ ἐπίστευσεν τῷ θεῷ, καὶ ἐλογίσθη αὐτῷ εἰς δικαιοσύνην). According to Paul, Abraham was credited with righteousness because he believed. But what did he believe? The difficulty is Paul’s insistence in Rom. 4:11 that Abraham “received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith (τῆς δικαιοσύνης τῆς πίστεως) while he was still uncircumcised.” Historically the salvific work of God in Christ was not yet accessible to Abraham – neither theologically nor epistemologically – because it followed Abraham by nearly 2000 years. What then does Paul mean by the expression τῆς δικαιοσύνης τῆς πίστεως, “the righteousness of faith”? Is it a subjective genitive, namely Abraham’s righteousness based on his faith, or is it an objective genitive, namely that he gained righteousness because he had faith in something? If the latter, what is it. Paul suggests further in Rom. 4:13–14 what Abraham’s faith was in: “for the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith (διὰ δικαιοσύνης πίστεως). 14 If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void.” As already in verse 11, Paul again employs the double genitive δικαιοσύνης πίστεως. I take it that the best understanding is an objective one: Abraham received righteousness based on his faith in the promise of God to inherit the world; his faith constitutes a mode of salvation. Paul’s argument about Abraham is two-fold. On the one hand he wants to establish that Abraham was the prototype of having faith in God’s promise. But on the other hand, and growing out of the promise, is Abraham’ significance that faith is a requirement “not only for the adherents of the law but also for those who share the faith of Abraham” (Rom. 4:16), or as Paul often says elsewhere, for both Jews and Gentiles or Greeks.11 Paul addresses the Greeks specifically in Rom. 1:16: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek (δύναμις γὰρ θεοῦ ἐστιν εἰς σωτηρίαν παντὶ τῷ πιστεύοντι, Ἰουδαίῳ τε πρῶτον καὶ Ἕλληνι).” At this point, Paul connects the saving power of the gospel with both Jews and Greeks who have faith. Here, the promise made to Abraham, to be explained in chapter four of Romans, is already summarized in the programmatic verse Rom. 1:16. Salvation is for those who believe in the Son, as Paul 11 

Cf. Rom. 1:16, 2:9–10, 3:9, 10:12; 1 Cor. 1:22–24, 12:13; Gal. 2:11–14, 3:28.

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had already introduced in Rom. 1:3–5 and will repeatedly clarify in the rest of Romans. In a similar vein, Paul explains in Gal. 3:7–9: “so, you see, those who believe are the descendants of Abraham. 8 And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith (ὅτι ἐκ πίστεως δικαιοῖ τὰ ἔθνη ὁ θεός), declared the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “All the Gentiles shall be blessed in you.” 9 For this reason, those who believe are blessed with Abraham who believed” (οἱ ἐκ πίστεως εὐλογοῦνται σὺν τῷ πιστῷ Ἀβραάμ). Here the circle closes for Paul: just like Jews, the Gentiles will be righteous by faith because of Abraham’s faith. Since the time of Abraham, salvation comes only by faith for all human beings. This is one of the overarching topics in Paul’s letters. Obedience of faith.  In the introduction to Romans, in 1:5, Paul writes: through Jesus Christ our Lord “we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles” (εἰς ὑπακοὴν πίστεως ἐν πᾶσιν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν). The phrase εἰς ὑπακοὴν πίστεως means, as Wright proposes, “the obedience which consists in faith” and serves Paul “as a shorthand” and summary “for the total work of the Messiah.”12 Paul returns to the theme of the obedience of faith in the doxology of Romans. In 16:25, Paul’s preaching of the gospel (τὸ εὐαγγέλιόν μου καὶ τὸ κήρυγμα Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ) as the revelation of Jesus Christ (κατὰ ἀποκάλυψιν μυστηρίου) flows into the great conclusion in 16:26 that the mystery of God “is now disclosed, and through the prophetic writings is made known to all the Gentiles, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith” (εἰς ὑπακοὴν πίστεως εἰς πάντα τὰ ἔθνη). All told for Paul, all of the efforts of his preaching and establishing churches culminates in the great finale that God desires the obedience which consists in faith, for Jews for sure, but also for Gentiles. The two sides of faith.  The theological distinction between fides qua creditur, “the faith by which is believed,” and fides quae creditur “the faith which is believed” does not originate explicitly in Pauline thought. On the one hand, fides qua creditur may be explained in these terms: faith is believing as an existential act, in that the entire human being is drawn into the reality of faith on an intellectual, emotional and physiological level. It is, in other words, the subjective appropriation of faith in daily life. It is my faith rather than the faith, as defined by a church, theology or creed. On the 12  Wright, “The Letter to the Romans,” 420, following Cranfield’s commentary on Romans. Cf. Rom. 6:16, where Paul declares that as “obedient slaves” we are slaves “either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness” (ὑπακοῆς εἰς δικαιοσύνην)? The phrase ὑπακοῆς εἰς δικαιοσύνην is likely a short form implying that obedience leads to righteousness through faith.

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other hand, fides quae creditur refers to the objective element of faith, in other words, the content of what I believe. Here faith does have an object, such as the teachings of the Bible or theology or creed. The emphasis is not on me as a subjective agent of belief, but on the content of the belief itself. It is, therefore, an intellectual assent to a set of biblical insights and doctrinal propositions.

6.3  Faith and Epistemology Above we indicated that, strictly speaking, faith is the mode of salvation and as such a matter relevant to human beings. We also hinted at that faith is initiated by God while human beings respond to the offer of faith. If so, how can we answer the question of how a person can come to have faith? What is Paul’s position? What exactly is God’s role and what is the human response? As a starting point into our discussion, Bultmann’s position on Paul is the following: “Glaube [ist] keine Möglichkeit, welche die Existenz von sich aus ergreifen kann” (faith is not a possibility that existence can appropriate by itself).13 Bultmann’s claim rests on two interrelated assumptions. First, as an exegete and theologian committed to existential interpretation, Bultmann clarifies in a reply to a letter from Karl Barth “dass Paulus anders in die Existenz der Hörer hineingesprochen hat… nämlich so, dass dem Hörer unter dem Wort seine Existenz durchsichtig wird” (Paul spoke differently [than Barth thinks] to the existence of his listers, namely in a manner that the listener’s existence becomes transparent through the Word).14 Second, Bultmann focuses “auf den Glauben als Existenzvollzug” (on faith as the authentication of existence).15 Another way of saying this is that he gave priority to the fides qua creditur, in the sense that faith is a subjective and therefore an ontic act that appropriates the objective side of faith, the fides quae creditur (the faith which is believed, the describable content of faith). In a nutshell, Bultmann’s exegetical posture is predicated on faith not being merely descriptive of a carefully outlined content, but aims squarely at the heart and mind of a human being. The aim is not to illuminate or inform a person about faith, to provide information about the mysteries of 13  Hans

220.

14 

15 

Weder, “Glauben und Verstehen,” in Bultmann Handbuch, 219–229, here

Weder, “Glauben und Verstehen,” 219. Weder, “Glauben und Verstehen,” 219.

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God and his dealings with humanity and the cosmos, but rather to be gripped by the power of the gospel itself (cf. Rom. 1:16) and thereby existentially transformed by having faith and living in faith. For Bultmann, there is no such thing as a neutral encounter with the faith proclaimed by the apostle. Again, how is possible to be clenched by faith in an existential encounter? The means of salvation, God’s deed of salvation in the Messiah, is not simply an act of divine grace that automatically cancels a person’s sin. For Paul, God’s salvation in Jesus the Christ must be made efficacious as God’s salvific act in the mode of faith. In the words of Hofius, faith does not imply “eine vom Menschen zu erfüllende Bedingung für den Empfang des Heils” (a condition to be fulfilled by a person to receive salvation) but is rather “der Modus des Heilsempfangs und der Heilsteilhabe” (the mode of receiving and participating in salvation).16 Elsewhere Hofius is even more explicit: “Der Glaube ist für Paulus ja nicht eine verfügbare Möglichkeit menschlicher Entscheidung und somit nicht Bedingung, Voraussetzung und Grund der Heilsteilhabe, sondern er ist – als alleiniges Werk und ausschließliche Gabe Gottes selbst – der Modus der Heilsteilhabe” (for Paul, faith is not an available possibility based on a personal decision and as such it is not a condition, prerequisite or ground for receiving salvation. Faith is – as the exclusive work and unique gift of God himself – the mode of participating in salvation).17 Put differently, the overwhelmingly gratuitous character of salvation is thus not only in the fact that God causes salvation in Jesus Christ and has it proclaimed as the εὐαγγέλιον, but equally that God “auch durch sein Wort und seinen Geist den Glauben schafft, der das Heil empfängt” ([God] also creates faith, to receive salvation, through his Word and Spirit).18 In sum, then, faith as the mode of salvation is not and cannot be a condition or work or option that stems from human conviction or insight or hermeneutical sophistry, but faith is the mode of the gracious and gratuitous work of God analogous to, but not identical with, the means of salvation. In Paul, there is an extended passage that sheds light into how he understands faith as the work of God. In Rom. 10:17 Paul remarks: “so faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ” (ἄρα ἡ πίστις ἐξ ἀκοῆς, ἡ δὲ ἀκοὴ διὰ ῥήματος Χριστοῦ). That by the expression “the word of Christ” Paul has the gospel in mind is evident 16 

Otfried Hofius, “Wort Gottes und Glaube bei Paulus,” in: Paulusstudien, 172. Hofius, “Das Evangelium und Israel. Erwägungen zu Römer 9–11,” in Paulusstudien, 182. 18  Hofius, “Wort Gottes und Glaube bei Paulus,” 172. 17 

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from the context. In 10:15 he refers to “those who bring good news” (τῶν εὐαγγελιζομένων [τὰ] ἀγαθά) and in 10:16 he mentions the “good news” (τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ). As we discussed in chapter 2.6, when Paul speaks of “the good news,” namely the gospel, he thinks of “the truth of the gospel.” It must suffice to repeat here only that the Pauline expression ἡ ἀλήθεια τοῦ εὐαγγελίου in Gal. 2:5 and 2:14 characterize his preaching.19 Both the content and the substance of his gospel are such that they un-cover truth. The truth Paul has in mind, is the truth about the all-enslaving power of sin, about the crucified and resurrected Messiah and consequently God’s salvific rectitude for both Jews and Gentiles. Paul’s trajectory that faith comes from the word, which in turn is based on hearing, is further explicated in Rom. 10:14–15: “but how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? (πῶς δὲ πιστεύσωσιν οὗ οὐκ ἤκουσαν; πῶς δὲ ἀκούσωσιν χωρὶς κηρύσσοντος;) 15 And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent?” (πῶς δὲ κηρύξωσιν ἐὰν μὴ ἀποσταλῶσιν;). Paul’s understanding that leads to faith may be summarized in this way: 1. God called Paul to be the apostle to the Gentiles (ἀποσταλῶσιν in verse 15 is

self-referential), so that 2. 3. 4. 5.

he would engage in the preaching (κηρύσσοντος)20 of the gospel of truth (ἡ ἀλήθεια τοῦ εὐαγγελίου), the good news that articulates the full story of God’s salvific plan, in order that both Jews and Gentiles could listen and hear (ἀκούσωσιν), so that finally they may come to have faith (πιστεύσωσιν).

The question still remains, what can faith know? Can a person of faith know that they are in need of salvation? In other words, can a person know that they are sinners, that they are enslaved by the power of sin, and that therefore they are committing sins? Even more, can a person know the 19 In Gal. 1:6–9 he argues uncompromisingly that there is no “different gospel” (ἕτερον εὐαγγέλιον) other than “the gospel of Christ” (τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τοῦ Χριστοῦ); cf. Cf. 2 Cor. 11:4. The apostle is so passionately persuaded that he warns twice that if anyone would preach against the gospel of Christ, that person would “be accursed,” even it would be an angel from heaven! In Gal. 1:11–12 Paul continues to explicate his gospel: “I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel that was proclaimed by me is not of human origin; 12 for I did not receive it from a human source, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.” 20  For Paul’s use of other verbs and nouns to express his proclamation of the gospel, cf. Otfried Hofius, “Gottes Wort im Menschenwort. Zum Verständnis des Evangeliums bei dem Apostel Paulus,” in Exegetische und Theologische Studien, 153–162, especially 156, notes 18 and 19.

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difference between sin and sins? If, for the sake of the argument, a person would be able to know these things, on what basis can such knowledge happen? What faculty do we as human beings have that can reliably understand and conclude that we are sinners in need of salvation? Do we have any cognizant capacity that would allow us to reason our way logically into the ontological strictures of our existence and infer the salvific path corresponding to it? The answer to all these questions is a resolute ‘no.’ Why can we as human beings not deduce that we are sinners based on our own innate reasoning faculty? In a step that clarifies what we have remarked about Paul, but goes beyond Paul, the young Dietrich Bonhoeffer provides a succinct answer. We have already mentioned Bonhoeffer in this regard in chapter 2.7 and 3.10, but his words are worth repeating at length: “Were it really a human possibility for persons themselves to know that they are sinners apart from revelation, neither ‘being in Adam’ nor ‘being in Christ’ would be existential designations of their being. For it would mean that human beings could place themselves into the truth, that they could somehow withdraw to a deeper being of their own, apart from being sinners.”21 Bonhoeffer elucidates what we have said about Paul. The human plight of the power of sin is an “existential designation.” As human beings we are existentially – and, again, that means ontologically – separated from God. This entails irreversibly that we do not have a mental or intellectual capacity to fully comprehend our own dire situation. Understanding sin goes against the very grain of our sinful nature. We cannot understand. We cannot comprehend the lie of our existential situation because we cannot from ourselves defeat the power of sin that also distorts our mind. We simply cannot place ourselves “into the truth” of our being, namely the reality that because of sin our perception of ourselves remains shrouded in untruth, in a lie about ourselves. Bonhoeffer quite rightly stresses that if we “could somehow withdraw to a deeper being” based on our own ability, we would in essence place ourselves on God’s level. Put otherwise, we would have a part in our own salvation. But sin is always such that it cannot perceive itself as sin. For that reason, a person is never born as a believer, every person must come to have faith.22 21  Dietrich

Bonhoeffer, Act and Being: Transcendental Philosophy and Ontology in Systematic Theology (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English 2). Translated by H. Martin Rumscheidt, edited by Wayne W. Floyd. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 1996, 136. 22  As a homiletical side note, our discussion of how a person comes to have faith should have made it abundantly obvious that it has nothing to do with the charisma, rhetoric, or any other skill of persuasion of the preacher. No preacher has ever, and never will, make even one follower of Christ because of what he or she says. If the Word of God is preached, then the Holy Spirit can transform the preaching into a response of

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Given the epistemological constraint of the thinking self, Bonhoeffer argues that “the knowledge of what sin is comes solely through the mediation of the Word of God in Christ” hence “sola fide credendum est nos esse peccatores” (only through faith can we believe that we are sinners).23 This brings us back to the point above, namely that faith comes by understanding τὴν ἀλήθειαν τοῦ εὐαγγελίου. For Paul, there can be no faith that is independent or abstracted from the gospel, the Word of God. Faith that is not bound up with the gospel – in its content and proclamation – is “fake news,” in other words a false faith. But how is faith being awakened from God’s revealed word? In Rom. 8:1–17 Paul introduces a discourse on the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer. As a programmatic statement, Paul announces in Rom. 8:9: “you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you (πνεῦμα θεοῦ οἰκεῖ ἐν ὑμῖν). Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ (πνεῦμα Χριστοῦ) does not belong to him.” Paul himself has made he connection between Spirit and gospel early in the letter to the Romans. In Rom. 1:9 he attests: “for God, whom I serve with my spirit by announcing the gospel of his Son, is my witness.” Here the apostle links the preaching of the gospel “to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles” (Rom. 1:5) and his own indwelling of the Holy Spirit.24 Just as Paul called as an apostle fulfills his apostleship under the power and direction of the Holy Spirit, so likewise the accepting of the gospel itself is under the Holy Spirit. “All who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God” (Rom. 8:14) and “have received a spirit of adoption” (Rom. 8:15), so that God’s Spirit is “bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (Rom. 8:16). Hofius captures this Pauline sentiment when he speaks of “die Erschliessung der Heilstat im Evangelium Christi

faith. If the preacher revels in his or her own words, albeit disguised as God’s words, then it is nothing more than a “clinging cymbal” (cf. 1 Cor. 13) and leads merely to what Bonhoeffer called an emotional, rather than a true spiritual, conversion. Cf. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together and Prayerbook of the Bible (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English 5). Edited by Geffrey B. Kelly. Translated by Daniel W. Bloesch and James H. Burtness. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 1996, 41–43, on emotional conversion, as opposed to a spiritual one. 23 Bonhoeffer, Act and Being, 145. Cf. Peter Frick, “Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Engaging Intellect – Legendary Life,” in Understanding Bonhoeffer, 3–22, here 14–17. 24  Cf. Rom. 15:15–16 where Paul reminds the Romans that “on some points I have written to you rather boldly by way of reminder, because of the grace given me by God 16 to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.”

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als Gottes Heilswort” (the unlocking of the act of salvation in the gospel of Christ as God’s salvific word).25 In 1 Corinthians, Paul employs even more direct language. When it comes to the proclamation of the mystery of God, says Paul in 1 Cor. 2:4– 5, “my speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power (ἀλλ’ ἐν ἀποδείξει πνεύματος καὶ δυνάμεως), 5 so that your faith (ἡ πίστις ὑμῶν) might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God” (ἐν δυνάμει θεοῦ). Here the interlocking elements of gospel, the content of the gospel (the crucified Jesus Christ) proclamation, the Spirit and faith all cohere.26 God’s salvific embrace for humanity is not just another option for a religious worldview over other competing views, but the very work of God from beginning to end, from the incarnation to the cross through the resurrection and finally to the realization of faith. In all these divine events, the Spirit of God has a central place. Or, in the words of Wright: “faith is itself the first fruit of the Spirit’s call.”27 In 1 Cor. 2:10–13, Paul expresses it so eloquently: “these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. 11 For what human being knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within? So also no one comprehends what is truly God’s except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God. 13 And we speak of these things in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual things to those who are spiritual.” In these verses, when Paul employs verbs such as “reveal, search, know, comprehend, receive, understand, teach, interpret” he employs them all in relation to the work of the Holy Spirit. For Paul, the exclusive and sufficient epistemological requirement is that “the Spirit of God” relates to “the human spirit that is within us” in a manner such that “we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God.” Paul is presumably here thinking about the gifts of the Spirit (cf. 1 Cor. 12–14) but we must also include the gift of faith. The view of God’s Spirit that Paul espouses in 1 Cor. 2:1–13 applies in full force to a person’s coming to faith. In the paraphrase of Paul Tillich: “it is, in biblical termi25  Hofius, “‘Extra nos in Christo.’ Voraussetzung und Fundament des ‘pro nobis’ und des ‘in nobis’ in der Theologie des Paulus,” 139. 26  Cf. 2 Cor. 3:6: God “has made us qualified to be ministers of a new covenant, not of letter but of spirit, for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” 27  N. T. Wright, Pauline Perspectives. Essays on Paul 1978–2013. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2013, 284.

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nology, the divine Spirit working in our spirit which creates faith.”28 Apart from the revealing work of the Holy Spirit – concretely by uncovering the truth about sin, salvation and faith – a person would be hopelessly stuck in self-referential attempts to transcend the inevitable “thrownness toward death,” to use an expression of Heidegger. According to Tillich’s theological understanding of what he calls “biblical religion,”29 including Paul’s thinking, a person apart from faith is stuck in self-referential attempts to discover ultimate reality because of the power of sin. “Sin,” Tillich argues, “is a religious concept designating the opposite of faith. The essence of sin is disbelief, the state of estrangement from God, the flight from him, the rebellion against him, the elevation of preliminary concerns to the rank of ultimate concern.”30 Tillich thus affirms what we have concluded many times in this book, namely that the state of sin makes it impossible to have a proper self-understanding vis-à-vis God, fellow human beings and the rest of creation. Every person “is bound to sin in all parts of his/her being.”31 This entails that there is no part of a person’s existence that is not at least potentially under the grip of sin. Emotion, reason, will and body are all equally affected by sin. For this reason, in a soteriological perspective, “intellectual endeavor can as little attain the ultimate truth as moral endeavor can attain the ultimate good.”32 Only those “in the state of faith” and participating in “a new being” can ultimately overcome sin’s estrangement. Throughout his many writings, the significance for Tillich is that “faith is the state of being ultimately concerned,”33 or faith “is the state of being 28  Tillich, Paul. Biblical Religion and the Search for Ultimate Reality. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press 1955, 52. Similarly, Tillich asserts: “only the Spirit of God knows God and gives knowledge of God to those who are grasped by him, who are in the state of faith” (56). See also Otfried Hofius, “Jesus Christus – die Mitte der Heiligen Schrift,” in Exegetische und Theologische Studien, 249–261. Hofius asserts, 256, that in principle “[kann] kein Mensch von sich aus das was die Schrift da sagt, als wahr annehmen und es im Glauben für wahr halten. Dazu bedarf es vielmehr des Heiligen Geistes, der dem Menschen das Wort des Evangeliums ins Herz schreibt, so dass er es als das von ihm geltende Wort der Wahrheit erkennt und annerkennt” (no person can accept as true what the Scriptures say and believe it to be true by faith. Rather, this requires the Holy Spirit, who writes the word of the Gospel in a person’s heart, so that one may recognize and acknowledge it as the Word of truth that addresses me). 29  As the title of one of his books indicates: Biblical Religion and the Search for Ultimate Reality. 30 Tillich, Biblical Religion and the Search for Ultimate Reality, 55. 31 Tillich, Biblical Religion and the Search for Ultimate Reality, 55; emphasis added, text slightly altered. 32 Tillich, Biblical Religion and the Search for Ultimate Reality, 55. 33  Paul Tillich, Dynamics of Faith. New York: Harper & Row 1957, 1.

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grasped by an ultimate concern,”34 or reminiscent of Tillich’s philosophical predilection, “faith is the state of being grasped by the Spiritual Presence and opened to the transcendent unity of unambiguous life,” or more precisely as a soteriological assertion, “faith is the state of being grasped by the New Being as it is manifest in Jesus the Christ.”35 Faith is the opposite of sin because like sin it also denotes “a state.” Tillich is keen to emphasize that faith is not primarily an intellectual or emotional disposition but an ontological reality, precisely therefor a state of being, a new being. Even though faith “is a concern of the whole person; it is the most personal concern and that which determines all others,” it is however “not forced upon us; it is not something which we can produce by the will to believe, but that by which we are grasped.”36 And this “being grasped” can only happen in the new post-resurrection ontology as a new being that is hearing the whisper of the Spirit of God. What the life of faith as a new being means concretely we will examine in the next chapter.

6.4  Faith and the Forgiveness of Sins In chapter 3 above we worked out the Pauline differentiation between sin as a power (singular) and sins as deeds (plural). We concluded that sin is an existential designation of our existence, an ontological state of being that characterizes and enslaves every human being without exception. The power of sin destroys life, sometimes in obvious and radical ways, more often in slow and creeping ways. In the end, the sting of sin is death. Sins as evil acts are contingent upon the power of sin. As such sins (in the plural) are not an existential-ontological state or category (what Heidegger called Existenzial). Exactly because they are unique in every person are they existentiell or ontic. No one person commits the same sins as another person. Each person’s sins are as unique as each person is distinctive. How is faith related to both sin and sins? We already suggested that faith as the mode of salvation is the appropriation of the means of salvation, God’s salvific path in the death and resurrection that defeated death once and for all. Above in section 6.3 we established that sin cannot be known 34 Tillich,

Biblical Religion and the Search for Ultimate Reality, 51. Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press 1963, vol.  3, 131. 36 Tillich, Biblical Religion and the Search for Ultimate Reality, 51–52. For a postmodern account of faith, see the biographical sketch by Gianni Vattimo, Belief. Translated by Luca D’Isato and David Webb. Standford: Standford University Press 1999. 35 

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other than by revelation,37 namely that the first act of faith is the confession prompted by God’s Spirit that we are sinners. But because sin is ontological, it cannot be simply forgiven by God. Sin is by its nature unforgivable; ontology is a state of being and not an ethical reality. It is different with our sins. Like sin we can “know” our sins phenomenologically in the experience of daily life, but unlike sin for which we are not guilty, for our sins we are accountable and culpable. As people of faith, we can know that we commit sins, we are capable of evaluating them, judge them as wrongdoing, repent from them and ask for forgiveness both from God and from the people against whom we sinned. We are not helpless in the face of our sins. The life of faith, or to recall Tillich’s expression, living “in the state of faith” indicates that faith is not a one-time static event, but a continuous dynamic of living in the new mode of being, of being in Christ. The mode of salvation is essentially, as Tillich suggests in the title of his book, Dynamics of Faith,38 the daily outworking of living under the lordship of Jesus the Christ. Since being constituted anew in the power of the resurrected Christ does not yet mean the earthly fulfilment of our new creation, but rather the eschatological hope of a future yet to be realized, even those in the state of faith are liable to commit sins. There is thus a direct continuity between Jewish ideas of repentance and forgiveness, as espoused by both Jesus and Paul, and the adoption of these essentially Jewish ideas in the early Christian communities. For now, it suffices to point out that the forgiveness of sins will remain an integral part even for the life of faith, even in the new ontology of sharing in the life of the resurrected Messiah. In the next chapter we will discuss in detail what forgiveness and reparation of sins entails. Let us briefly return to the metaphor of constructing a house, that we started in chapter 1. Having now completed our discussion of the critical difference between the means and the mode of salvation is like finishing the construction of the house. The outside shell and the interior amenities are now finished. On the outside, the roof is mounted, the windows and doors are installed and the siding completed. On the inside, all electrical work, plumbing and drywalling is finished, flooring installed, bathroom and kitchen are fully functional. The means and the mode of salvation – metaphorically the outside and inside of the house – are the structural integrity of the house. The new building is clearly recognizable as a house; all 37  We do know, however, phenomenologically that our lives are not what they could be. Every person experiences the breakdown and disruption of life and everyone feels their finiteness in the face of death. 38  Paul Tillich, Dynamics of Faith. New York: Harper & Row 1957.

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the essential aspects of a house are completed and the house is ready for moving in. A passerby looking at the constructed building can identify it as a house with Pauline features.

Understanding Existence

Chapter 7

Two Endpoints: New Existence ὥστε εἴ τις ἐν Χριστῷ, καινὴ κτίσις· τὰ ἀρχαῖα παρῆλθεν, ἰδοὺ γέγονεν καινά 2 Cor. 5:17

7.1  Endpoint One: A New Lordship In continuation of the metaphor of building a house, at the end of the last chapter we concluded that the finishing of the outside and inside of the house is akin to the difference between the means and the mode of salvation. There is another way of saying this: because the house is now ready to move in, let the real life begin! In other words, what makes a house a home is not its physical structure and appearance, but the life of the people that live within its walls. In the context of Paul, the means and mode of salvation are the structure that makes the life of faith possible. What counts in the end as a worthwhile and fulfilling life is not the physical edifice of the house, but the kind of wholesome life that is lived within the community of its inhabitants. The life of faith is exactly that aspect that goes beyond the means and the mode of salvation as the next step of salvation. But what is the life of faith? This is the question we are addressing now. In the previous chapter we discussed the mode of salvation as that of faith. Salvation is made personal by accepting the Word of God, as the gospel of unhiding truth, that God raised Jesus from the dead to defeat death and evil absolutely. Paul provides a succinct synopsis of the means and mode of salvation in Rom. 10:9: “if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord (κύριον Ἰησοῦν) and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved.” In a nutshell, Paul proposes that the content of faith is the confession and proclamation κύριον Ἰησοῦν. That Jesus is Lord at once points backward to the death and resurrection of Jesus and thus the overcoming of the old lordship of sin, while at the same time it points forward to the new life that has now

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started and will be fulfilled in the eschaton. There are thus two key moments in the divine plan of salvation: the first endpoint, or maybe better a turning point, is that Jesus is Lord and the second endpoint is the new creation of earth and heaven. The new existence of those who believe “with the heart” begins the moment they confess κύριος Ἰησοῦς, “Lord is Jesus.” It is a new life no longer under the dominating power of sin, but under the lordship of Jesus Christ, the risen and living Messiah. It is important to recall E. P. Sanders’ comment once more. He maintains that “by sharing in Christ’s death, one dies to the power of sin or to the old aeon, with the result that one belongs to God. The transfer is… from one lordship to another. The transfer takes place by participation in Christ’s death.”1 At this point, however, there arises a significant existential dilemma. While the resurrection of Jesus provided an instant restitution of the old ontological-existential structures – sin, all evil and death were definitively defeated – the result of that triumphant victory for the believer can only be realized partially in the present new life and conclusively in the eschaton, in the fulfillment of the new creation. The existential paradox can be expressed in these terms: even though something entirely and absolutely new has been created, sin’s enslaving power still remains a temporary and interim reality in the new life of the believer in Christ. On a cosmic scale, the ontological recast of creation is finalized in the sense that Jesus has been raised from the dead and thus defeated death and sin cosmologically, but on the personal level this new creation must yet become realized for those who have faith. In other words, a completed new lordship does not automatically translate into a completely new and redeemed life here on earth that can leave behind the old lordship of sin and sins. Without exception, the new creation (cf. 2 Cor. 5:17), in which every believer participates, is a provisional new existence. To say that the new life in Christ is provisional does not mean that the lordship of Christ is defective or lacking or somehow inadequate. Not at all. From the point of view of the work of God in Jesus Christ, the new lordship is entirely complete and effective; but from the point of view of those who believe in Christ’s salvific death and resurrection, namely from the human point of view, Christ’s lordship is provisional because the believer has not yet been through the gate of physical death. As in the resurrection of Jesus Christ himself, death can only be defeated and overcome 1  E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism. A Comparison of Patterns of Religion. Philadelphia: Fortress Press 1977, 467–468.

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when the dead person is raised from the shackles of death. The new creation becomes operative when the death of death has proven a new reality. And that particular moment lies still in the future for those who are in Christ and are alive this very moment. So, if the lordship of Christ is not defective in any way, is it our faith that is inadequate? No, faith is not a problem either. For the time being, a person who has faith in Christ can live only in hope of what is to come. Paul may have the provisional character of the life of faith in mind when he says in 1 Cor. 13:9–10 that “we know only in part (ἐκ μέρους), and we prophesy only in part (ἐκ μέρους); 10 but when the complete (τὸ τέλειον) comes, the partial will come to an end.” In this context, Paul leaves undefined what he means by “the partial” (ἐκ μέρους). Given what he has explained in such detail elsewhere in his letters about the work of God in Jesus the Christ – namely the death and resurrection – the partial does definitely not refer to the divine work of salvation. In other words, the partial is not a veiled Pauline reference to the means of salvation. God’s salvific work is complete and not partial; the resurrection of Jesus Christ is neither partial nor provisional and does not need anything else to make it complete. If so, what can Paul mean by “the partial” (ἐκ μέρους)? Does Paul perhaps mean that faith is defective or that we have too little faith or that our faith is hampered by doubts or that we need a certain full measure of faith before it can be effective? No, it cannot mean any of that. What Paul faintly suggests in 1 Cor. 13:10 has nothing to do with faith as such, but with the sphere in which faith operates. It seems to me that the only reasonable answer to Paul’s reference to “the partial” is that the post-resurrection ontological structure of faith is partial, but not faith itself. For the same reason, the existential reality and experience of faith is therefore also necessarily partial and fragmentary. The experience of the new creation in faith will always be fragmentary and provisional. It cannot be any other way. The content of faith (fides quae creditur) is clear, accurate and complete: the resurrection is a fact. This is not to claim that the resurrection is a scientifically verifiable fact, but as Becker has emphasized quite correctly, the resurrection “ist ausschliesslich Glaubenszeugnis” (exclusively a matter of faith).2 As a testimony to our faith, the truth of the resurrection is the cornerstone of the new creation, the new self. But the full truth of the resurrection lies in the eschaton. For now, Christians live in the tension and dynamic between of the already-now and not-yet of the power and reality 2  Becker, Jürgen. “Auferstehung. II Auferstehung Jesu Christi. 1. Neues Testament,” in RGG4 , vol.  1, 922.

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of the new creation. Outwardly Christians continue to live as before, while inwardly there is the renewal of the spirit in faith. Persons of faith live under the new lordship of Christ and their lives are changed here on earth in a way that reflects the new lordship, in love and deed. But at the same time, Christians continue to experience illness, suffering, hardship and death like any other person. Moreover, they are capable of committing sins. Christians can still lie, steal, commit adultery, deceive or commit any other deed of sin – notwithstanding the lordship of Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Again, this neither means that the lordship of Christ is too weak, nor that faith is too fragile. The tension between Christ’s lordship and our feebleness in faith is the result, to use a term Luther was fond of, of us being at the same time both redeemed sinner and fallible saint (simul iustus et peccator).3 This is the existential reality of every person in Christ. It cannot be any other way. It is so because of the provisional reality of the ontological structures of the new creation. The denial or downplaying of the tension every Christian person experiences – the dynamic of the lordship of Christ while still potentially being able to commit acts of sin – is the rejection of the phenomenological recognition of our very human nature. The truth – the making nude of the structures of our being as Christians – is such that while fully redeemed in faith through God’s work of salvation, our Dasein continues to be afflicted by the sidesteps into acts of sin. The double reality of the already-now and not-yet of salvation does not, however, cast any doubt on the lordship of Christ in faith. Paul leaves no doubt in this regard. In Rom. 8:1–2 he expresses with great gusto that “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.” That Christ has set us free from the law of sin and death is true in the sense that we just described above: it is not true absolutely, but it is true to the extent that we are now empowered to life in faith and in the hope of eschatological redemption in the fulfillment of the new creation, guided by the Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:9–11). Paul’s final word on the effectiveness and actuality of the lordship of Christ, despite the remnant of sins, is magnificently voiced in Rom. 8:37–39” “in all these things we are more than victorious through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things 3  Jens Zimmermann, Recovering Theological Hermeneutics. An Incarnational-Trinitarian Theory of Interpretation. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic 2004, 76, argues that Luther believed “in the Word’s effecting a radical ontological change, followed by a gradual restoration of the divine image in human beings;” emphasis added.

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to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Paul’s final word on the lordship of Christ is thus one of full assurance and affirmation. Neither death (the old ontological structures) nor life (the new existental structures) can stand in the way between a person of faith in Christ and the new creation.

7.2  Endpoint Two: A New Creation As a former Pharisee and a Jew deeply committed to the teachings of Torah, Paul knew of the prophetic tradition that spoke vividly of a new world to come. Paul knew well that the prophets of Israel had a clear vision of a new heaven and a new earth. The classic expression of the vision of the new creation is in Isaiah 65:17: “I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.” The details of what a new heaven and a new earth may look like are spelled out in the ensuing verses 19–25: 19 20 21 22

“I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime; for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed. They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen4 shall long enjoy the work of their hands.

4  Cf. Ezek. 37, where the promise of the restoration of Israel is described in a vision: “So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. 8 I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. 9 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” 10 I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude. 11 Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’ 12

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They shall not labor in vain, or bear children for calamity; for they shall be offspring blessed by the Lord and their descendants as well. Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the serpent – its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord.”

Isaiah’s prophetic announcement of a new creation is echoed in Jewish and early Christian writings. For example, 2 Peter 3:13 refers back to a biblical promise: “but, in accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home.” Similarly, at the end of the Bible, the seer in Rev. 21:1 articulates his vision: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.” From Isaiah to Revelation there is an agreement that the first creation shall be replaced by a new one. How does Paul discuss these promises? From old to new.  In Paul, the classic text on the new creation is 2 Cor. 5:17: “so if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation (ὥστε εἴ τις ἐν Χριστῷ, καινὴ κτίσις): everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new” (τὰ ἀρχαῖα παρῆλθεν, ἰδοὺ γέγονεν καινά). In view of a new creation, Paul maintains that the old must become new, and that in a universal cosmic sense.5 Why is this so and what does it mean? Given the larger context of 2 Cor. 5, Paul speaks metaphorically in verse 1 of “the earthly tent we live in (ἡ ἐπίγειος ἡμῶν οἰκία τοῦ σκήνους),” namely our human life6 that expects beyond death “a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (οἰκοδομὴν ἐκ θεοῦ ἔχομεν, οἰκίαν ἀχειροποίητον αἰώνιον ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς). Then in verse 4 Paul further elucidates: “while we are still in this tent, we groan under our burden (στενάζομεν βαρούμενοι), Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel.” 5  Cf. Giorgio Agamben, Nudities. Translated by David Kishik and Stefan Pedatella. Stanford: Stanford University Press 2011, chapter 1 on the dynamic between creation and salvation. Agamben argues, 6, that “a critical or philosophical work that does not possess sort of an essential relationship with creation is condemned to pointless idling.” 6  In verse 6 Paul specifies life as being “in the body” (ἐν τῷ σώματι) and refers to the body again in verses 8 and 10.

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because we wish not to be unclothed but to be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life” (τὸ θνητὸν ὑπὸ τῆς ζωῆς). Here the apostle acknowledges that “mortal life” can deal “heavy burdens” to carry. But the promise of God, “given us by the Spirit” is a “guarantee” that one day mortal life will be taken over into immortal life and presumably the absence of “heavy burdens.” There is a second Pauline reference in which the apostle also employs the expression καινὴ κτίσις.7 In Gal. 6:15, Paul explains that “neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything, but a new creation (καινὴ κτίσις) is everything!” While the Greek text does not say that a new creation “is everything,” the larger context (cf. Gal. 3:28) does lead to the conclusion that Paul thinks of the death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ (cf. 6:14 “the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ”) as the cosmic event par excellence constitutive for “ein neues Menschenbild” (a new understanding of humanity).8 It is noteworthy that Paul speaks in 2 Cor. 5:17 and Gal. 6:15 not primarily of a new person but a new creation. God’s cosmic victory over sin and death is constitutive for an entirely new cosmic order that includes the new person. Put differently, the redemption of human life from death is embedded in the newness of all creation. Following Paul, there are however two references to “the new person.” The dynamic between the old life and new creation is also articulated in Ephesians 4. In this context, the author reminds the members of the congregation in 4:22 “to put away your former way of life, your old self (τὸν παλαιὸν ἄνθρωπον), corrupt and deluded by its lusts” and underscores instead, in 4:24, “to clothe yourselves with the new self (τὸν καινὸν ἄνθρωπον), created (κτισθέντα) according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” Distinct from 2 Corinthians 5, old and new is contrasted here not so much in a universal cosmic dimension, but in an anthropological one. The old is the τὸν παλαιὸν ἄνθρωπον and the new is the τὸν καινὸν ἄνθρωπον. The contrast between the old and new self, literally “person,” is also explained in that the new person is created (κτισθέντα) in the image of God. As in the first creation, the new creation marks a person as being created in the divine image.9 The human circle is thus complete: the new 7  In extra-biblical Jewish sources, the term “new creation” is also found. Cf. Jubilee 4:26; 1 Enoch 72,1. The Qumran community, which knew of Isaiah, may have thought of Isa. 48:6–7, 65:17 in it understanding of a renewed creation; cf. 1 QH 13:11–12. 8  Ulrich Mell, “Neuschöpfung und Gotteskindschaft,” in Paulus Handbuch, 390– 394, here 391. 9  There is a striking parallel in Col. 3:9–10: “you have stripped off the old self (τὸν παλαιὸν ἄνθρωπον) with its practices 10 and have clothed yourselves with the new self

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person takes the place of the old person. Just as all of creation, so also the old person has passed away completely. To return to Paul, what he is describing in 2 Cor 5:1–5 is nothing other than his rationale why the “the old things” (τὰ ἀρχαῖα) of verse 17 must pass away. The old things are what we have determined as the universal ontological structures that bind every human being to a burdensome life, to the obstruction of life in all its forms. Of those old structures, mortality reigns and at the end of physical life, death is waiting. The unyielding and finality of these old structures meant that they are beyond repair. Nowhere in Paul, or in any other biblical text, do we find even a hint that God’s plan entails to improve, renovate or otherwise make the old creation better. In other words, the ontological structures under the power of sin and death were never merely in a state of badly needed restoration. They were beyond repair. They had to be disempowered, defeated, abandoned and new ones installed in their place. The foundation of these new structures is in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Still within the same larger context, Paul says in 2 Cor. 5:14–15: “For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died (ὅτι εἷς ὑπὲρ πάντων ἀπέθανεν, ἄρα οἱ πάντες ἀπέθανον). 15 And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them” (καὶ ὑπὲρ πάντων ἀπέθανεν, ἵνα οἱ ζῶντες μηκέτι ἑαυτοῖς ζῶσιν ἀλλὰ τῷ ὑπὲρ αὐτῶν ἀποθανόντι καὶ ἐγερθέντι). As we noted many times so far, the resurrection of Jesus the Christ marks the end point of the old structures and the beginning of new structures; the old are structures unto death, the new ones unto life. Creation must be freed.  For Paul, the new creation is not merely a creation of a new person, a mere transformation of a person under the power of sin to a person under the lordship of Christ. Even though the new creation is anthropological, it is at the same time cosmic. To this end Paul engages in a theology of creation in Rom. 8:19–23: “For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; 20 for the creation was subjected to futility (τῇ γὰρ ματαιότητι ἡ κτίσις ὑπετάγη), not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God (ὅτι καὶ αὐτὴ ἡ κτίσις ἐλευθερωθήσεται ἀπὸ τῆς δουλείας τῆς φθορᾶς εἰς τὴν ἐλευθερίαν τῆς δόξης (τὸν νέον), which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator” (κατ’ εἰκόνα τοῦ κτίσαντος αὐτόν).

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τῶν τέκνων τοῦ θεοῦ). 22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; 23 and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.” Creation itself needs to be freed – not forgiven – from the δουλείαν τῆς φθορᾶς. Paul used earlier in Romans the same root and sematic domain when he speaks of the enslavement of human beings under the power of sin (ὅτι ἦτε δοῦλοι τῆς ἁμαρτίας, cf. Rom. 6:17, 20). The expression τῆς δουλείας τῆς φθορᾶς in relation to the created order suggests that creation itself undergoes the process of decay and will come to an end. The word “death” may not be the correct term to characterize the corruptibility of the cosmos. Perhaps all Paul wants to underscore is that the duration of the cosmos is finite in time and space. If so, he does not hold the view of his contemporary Philo of Alexandria who, in debate with Plato and Aristotle, espoused the view of a continuous creation.10 For Philo, paradoxically, held the view of a creatio ex nihilo while also arguing that the cosmos without a beginning must likewise be without end. The upshot of Paul’s reflection on creation in Rom. 8:19–23 may be summarized as follows: God’s salvific work in the resurrection of Jesus the Christ, concretely by definitively abrogating death as the consequence of the power of sin, was not just an event for the salvation of human beings, but a cosmic event. The salvation of human beings cannot be severed from the liberation of the cosmos. Both needed redemption because both were under the power of corruption. God’s salvific covenant included both the redemption of human beings as well as the recreation of the cosmic order.11 A new and incorruptible creation.  The first creation – although pronounced good – was never able to be realized. From the very beginning, because of the transgression of Adam and Eve and the ensuing universal power of sin, God’s intended purpose with creation was thwarted and put on hold. In fact, the intended purpose of the first creation will never be fulfilled. In the words of Hofius: “Die Totenauferstehung ist also nicht Restitution eines status integritatis, den Adam schon im Paradies besessen hätte; sie ist vielmehr die erstmalige Realisierung der ursprünglichen, aber aufgrund der παράβασις Adams unverwirklicht gebliebenen Schöpfungs­ absicht Gottes” (the resurrection from the dead is not a restitution of a state of integrity, which Adam already possessed in paradise; but rather resur10  Cf. Peter Frick, Divine Providence in Philo of Alexandria. TSAJ 77. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 1999, 102–108. 11  Cf. Otfried Hofius, “Mensch und Schöpfung nach dem Zeugnis des Römerbriefs,” in Exegetische und Theologische Studien, 91–104, here 103.

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rection is the first realization of the original intention of God’s creation, which remained unrealized because of Adam’s transgression).12 The idea that God’s first creation has never been realized in its full intent is conceivably in Paul’s mind in Rom. 4:17 when he put forth the ontological claim that God “gives life to the dead (θεοῦ τοῦ ζῳοποιοῦντος τοὺς νεκροὺς),” an allusion to resurrection and “calls into existence the things that do not exist” (καὶ καλοῦντος τὰ μὴ ὄντα ὡς ὄντα). For Paul, the resurrection of Jesus goes hand in hand with τὰ μὴ ὄντα ὡς ὄντα, in other words, the resurrection is the foundation of a new coming existence. The resurrection is thus the watershed between the old and the new things. Behind are the old structures, ahead lie the new structures; past are the old things leading to death, future are the new things leading to eternal life. The old is corruptible and thus mortal, the new is incorruptible and thus eternal. From death to life.  Above in chapter 5.6 we already discussed how the resurrection is the capstone event from life to death. We do not need to repeat that discussion here other than pointing out that this Pauline sentiment – that the new creation will be one of immortality – is also echoed in the Pauline school. For example, in 2 Tim. 1:10 we read: “it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (φανερωθεῖσαν δὲ νῦν διὰ τῆς ἐπιφανείας τοῦ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ, καταργήσαντος μὲν τὸν θάνατον φωτίσαντος δὲ ζωὴν καὶ ἀφθαρσίαν διὰ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου). In almost Heideggerian language (see chapter 2.6), the appearing through the logos – namely that Jesus Christ is saviour – has the double effect of abolishing death and thereby guaranteeing incorruptibility13 and bringing life. In this deutero-Pauline verse 2 Tim. 1:10 we have a decisive correlation between Jesus the Messiah, the abolishing of death and the coming of life as incorruptibility, hence as eternal life. The assumption here seems that there is a change in ontological status. For, as we have said repeatedly throughout this study, the power of sin is an existential-ontological structure with corruptibility as one of its main features. Indeed, the very nature of sin is such that nothing can escape its corruptible enslavement. But now the post-resurrection reality has dramatically shifted: the old things, and that can only mean the old ontological structures of sin and death, have

12  Otfried

Hofius, “Die Adam-Christus-Antithese und das Gesetz,” in: Paulusstu­ dien, 81. 13 The Lutherbibel 2017 translates ἀφθαρσία as “unvergängliches Wesen.”

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been deconstructed and new structures – the incorruptibility of eternal existence – has emerged as eternal and conclusive victory in a new creation. From mortality to eternity.  In 2 Cor. 5:4 Paul graphically notes that the future expectation for those who life by faith is that “what is mortal may be swallowed up by life” (τὸ θνητὸν ὑπὸ τῆς ζωῆς). For Paul, just as death is the final endpoint of our linear time experience, so likewise is the resurrection a new starting point for a non-linear life experience. Not surprisingly, Paul speaks several times of the life in the Messiah as an eternal life. In Rom. 2:7, he notes, “those who by patiently doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life” (ζωὴν αἰώνιον), in Rom. 5:21 he asserts that “just as sin reigned in death, so grace might also reign through justification leading to eternal life (ζωὴν αἰώνιον) through Jesus Christ our Lord,” in Rom. 6:22 he maintains that “that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the fruit you have leads to sanctification, and the end is eternal life” (ζωὴν αἰώνιον) while finally in Rom. 6:23 he remarks: “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (τὰ γὰρ ὀψώνια τῆς ἁμαρτίας θάνατος, τὸ δὲ χάρισμα τοῦ θεοῦ ζωὴ αἰώνιος ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ τῷ κυρίῳ ἡμῶν).14 The inner logic of Pauline thought, and by extension any theological reflection on Paul’s logic, requires a consideration of time and its end vis-àvis death. The very nature of death is its end; and there is no measurement of an end apart from the computation of time. While an accurate explanation of biblical time is difficult, Paul is influenced by Jewish-Hellenistic conceptions of time. On the one hand, he espouses a cyclical understanding of time from his biblical heritage, but on the other hand, he also embraces elements of a linear conception of time, presumably from his Hellenistic environment.15 Paul thus holds the view that time refers both to the end of this present age and the coming of a new aeon. There is no doubt that Paul was deeply convinced that he himself lived in Messianic time, that the Messiah would return imminently and deliver those who had faith in Jesus Christ. In 1 Thess. 4:13–18, the apostle makes the point, in response to the fact that some believers had already died before the coming of the Messiah, that death did not separate the deceased from the Messiah’s com14  Cf. 2 Cor. 5:1: “for we know that, if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” and Gal. 6:8: “if you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh, but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit.” 15  Cf. Klaus Koch, “Zeit/Zeitgeist. II. Biblisch. 2. Altes Testament,” in RGG 4 , vol.  8 , 1802–1803 and Jörg Frey, “Zeit/Zeitgeist. II. Biblisch. 2. Neues Testament,” in RGG4 , vol.  8 , 1804–1805.

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ing kingdom. Rather, the Messiah himself will return to earth and raise them from death, “so that we will be with the Lord forever” (οὕτως πάντοτε σὺν κυρίῳ ἐσόμεθα). In a sense Paul had a compressed view of time. In 1 Cor. 7:29 he declares that “the appointed time has grown short” (ὁ καιρὸς συνεσταλμένος ἐστίν) and in 7:31 he insists that “the present form of this world is passing away” (παράγει γὰρ τὸ σχῆμα τοῦ κόσμου τούτου). There is an urgency in Paul’s mind concerning the end of time, and this in a twofold manner. First, Paul considered the end of time because the present aeon is evil (cf. Gal. 1:3 ἐξέληται ἡμᾶς ἐκ τοῦ αἰῶνος τοῦ ἐνεστῶτος πονηροῦ) and reaches a climactic ending at the Parousia of the Messiah. Second, and related to the first, because of the Messiah’s return, the time for salvation is limited. This is quite clearly stated in Rom. 13:11: “you know what time it is (εἰδότες τὸν καιρόν), how it is already the moment (ὅτι ὥρα ἤδη) for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers.” Similarly, in 2 Cor. 6:2 Paul also connects the present time with salvation, and lends his words apocalyptic urgency: “Look, now is the acceptable time; look, now is the day of salvation!” (ἰδοὺ νῦν καιρὸς εὐπρόσδεκτος, ἰδοὺ νῦν ἡμέρα σωτηρίας).16

7.3  The Church Up to now in this book, the reader may have gotten the impression that our analysis of sin and sins from an ontological-existential perspective, and correspondingly our distinction between the means and the mode of salvation, are a concern mainly for the individual person. Contrary to Stendahl and others, we must uphold the claim that the issues of sin, death and salvation are matters of concern for every individual, without diminishing the central place of community vis-à-vis the individual believer. The juxtaposition of individual versus community is artificial. There is no inherent and mutually exclusive tension between the Cristian community and the individual believer or vice-versa. In Pauline language, Christian communi16 Stephen

Westerholm, “Righteousness, Cosmic and Microcosmic,” in Law and Ethics, 337–353, here 351, points to “a vexed issue.” Given Paul’s understanding of the new creation, there remains the unresolved question of the larger meaning of “cosmic righteousness” (349–352). Does the massa perditionis apply to all those who do not embrace and confess that Jesus is Lord or is the typology of Adam and Christ such that the latter completely overcomes the former, so that the new creation inaugurates a universal cosmic renewal? Does ontological renewal guarantee existential wholeness in an unlimited scale?

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ty is the church of Jesus Christ. Our current interest in examining Paul’s view and significance of the church is not so much in providing a comprehensive ecclesiology rather than a specific look at the existential nature of the community anchored in Jesus Christ. In his letters, the apostle designates the Christian communities from the very beginning as “churches.” Already in 1 Thess. 1:1 he characterizes the Thessalonian community as “the church of the Thessalonians” (τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ Θεσσαλονικέων).17 The standard term Paul employs (44 times in the authentic Pauline letters, 31 times in the Corinthian correspondence) to describe the Christian community is ἐκκλησία. The etymology of the word suggests that the church consists of those persons who are “called out.” They are called out of their old existence under the power of sin and death into a new existence under the lordship of Jesus Christ. In the language of Eph. 5:23, “Christ is the head of the church.” The metaphor of Christ being the head of the church is indicative of the idea and analogous to the primary function of the head vis-à-vis the entire body. The head as the cognitive control center is in command of every other part of the body. The one body of Christ.  Paul himself also speaks of the church in the metaphor of body and members. In 1 Cor. 12:12 Paul explains that “just as the body is one and has many members (τὸ σῶμα ἕν ἐστιν καὶ μέλη πολλὰ ἔχει), and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.” The point of the analogy between body and Christ culminates in Paul’s view that there is only one church with Christ as the head. Later in the same context, the apostle reiterates in 1 Cor. 12:27: “you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” In other words, all those who confess faith in Christ are members of the one body of Christ, namely the one and only church. Without exception, Jews and Gentiles alike, are called out from the old ontological structures into the new communal existence in the one church under the lordship of the risen Messiah. Every person who confesses faith in Christ is a member of the church. This is so by default. The person of faith receives a default membership in the church because it is impossible to be “in Christ” and not at the same time also be “in the body.” In other words, in the metaphor of the church as the body of Christ, it would be impossible to be a member of the body, for example a hand or a foot, and not belong to the body. Neither hand nor foot can exist at all apart from the body as a whole. Any member severed from the body is unable to be alive; its corruptibility is inevitable. In terms 17  But Paul also refers to a congregation by city. Cf. 1 Cor. 1:2: “to the church of God that is in Corinth.”

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of our contemporary ecclesiological structures, it must be said that there is only one church, the church of Jesus Christ, and all people of faith in Christ are members of that one church. Every woman and man of faith in Christ is a member of the one body and church of Jesus Christ, and not of any denomination, national church, regional church, para-church organization or any other formally or informally structured community that aspires to be the church. From an ontological and existential perspective, there are two basic designations18 that characterize the one body of Christ and all its members. In short, the church is and will always be a community of both saints and sinners. Communion of saints.  Paul employs the term ἅγιοι (holy) as a substantive adjective in the sense “the holy ones” as a parallel expression to the designation ἐκκλησία. In 1 Cor. 1:2 Paul opens the letter with the greeting “to the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints (τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ τοῦ θεοῦ τῇ οὔσῃ ἐν Κορίνθῳ, ἡγιασμένοις ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ, κλητοῖς ἁγίοις). The same opening of the prescript is used in 2 Cor. 1:1: “to the church of God that is in Corinth, together with all the saints (σὺν τοῖς ἁγίοις πᾶσιν) throughout Achaia.” Similarly, Paul also employs the term ἅγιοι in Rom. 1:7: “to all God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints” and Phil. 1:1: “to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi.” In both cases, Paul has no hesitation to characterize the church as the body that consists of saints. In fact, with ease he seems to equate the church with the saints. The reverse seems also the case. As can be seen in 2 Cor. 13:12 “all the saints greet you” (ἀσπάζονται ὑμᾶς οἱ ἅγιοι πάντες). Not only does Paul and the other church leaders refer to the ἐκκλησία as ἅγιοι, the church members at Corinth themselves adopted the Pauline convention as well. What does it mean when Paul envisions the churches as a community of saints? To imagine the church as the body of Christ and its members as those who confess that Jesus is the risen Lord, implies that the church is the embodiment of the new community. Paul’s basic premise of the new community is predicated on what he said in 2 Cor. 5:17: “so if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation (ὥστε εἴ τις ἐν Χριστῷ, καινὴ κτίσις): everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new” (τὰ 18  Paul speaks of the church also in these (metaphorical) terms: “called” (1 Thess. 1:4), “beloved” (Rom. 1:7; 11:28), “children,” “sons,” (Gal. 3:26; Phil. 2:15), “descendants” of Abraham (Gal. 3:7, 16, 19), “heirs” (Rom. 8:17; Gal. 3:26–29), “God’s people” (2 Cor. 6:16; Rom. 9:25), “brother/sister” (Rom. 8:29). Cf. Wolfgang Kraus, “Die Kirche,” in Paulus Handbuch, 400–408.

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ἀρχαῖα παρῆλθεν, ἰδοὺ γέγονεν καινά). By virtue of being in Christ “there is a new creation.” And since those who are new in Christ are also, as we noted above, by default members of the one body of Christ, it follows that this body of Christ, namely the church, is a new community. The new element of the community is that every member is under the lordship of Christ who redeemed the entire cosmos and every member from the corruptibility of death and the power of sin. At least this is the ideal, partially realized and partially waiting for fulfillment in the eschaton. The unrealized side of the new community is tied to the apocalyptic nature of the cosmic completion of salvation. Here again the scheme of already-now and not-yet comes into play. On the one hand, the new community is indeed new and already operates in the power of its new Lord, Jesus the Messiah. Yet on the other hand, the new community is not yet complete in its salvific realization. The church is very close, according to Paul, standing at the threshold of entering the world to come – but the wait is still ongoing. An excellent example of this dynamic is Paul’s understanding of marriage and slavery. The hermeneutic clue to the passage is 1 Cor. 7:28: “the appointed time has grown short” and 7:31: “For the present form of this world is passing away.” Against the backdrop of the pressing end of salvific time, Paul is actually saying very little about slavery and marriage as such and almost everything about the urgency that the Corinthians should expect the imminent end and therefore social and marital standing are secondary considerations at best. Communion of sinners.  Paul’s explicit characterization of the church of Christ as the communion of saints has, however, a converse side: namely that those very saints are still able to be shown up as sinners. When we look at the situation of the Corinthian church, and Paul’s tireless attempts to sort out all of the issues in his extensive correspondence, it becomes immediately apparent that the saints were not always saints and, de facto, slipped into ways of being and acting that branded them more as sinners than as redeemed saints. Paul cannot close his eyes to this reality, and he squarely addresses it. Expressed otherwise, the situation of the church at Corinth was hardly a success story of the saints. Paul goes into quite some details to make the case for his own apostleship, the exclusive legitimacy for the gospel he preaches, vigorously defends the resurrection (1 Cor. 15), rails against all kinds of schisms, severely condemns incest and other sexual practices, deals with personal insult and never knows whether or not the entire Corinthian church will fall away from the gospel. Needless to say, these things did not make the Corinthians the showcase for a saintly community. What was the issue?

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The issue was ontological-existential. The community of saints still bears the mark of the old structures and strives to embrace the new structures: it is at the same time communion of saints and communion of sinners. This two-edged membership will never change, because it cannot change. To think and behave otherwise is an illusion and quite contrary to the gospel itself. Because the old structures of sin and death have not yet completely overcome, various acts of sin may be creeping up in any church community. News about scandals in churches should not come as a shock to us. Given its ontological reality, in principle any church may become liable to structural oppression, corruption, economic, sexual, racial and other sins. How the church must deal with these transgressions, we will discuss in section 7.5 below.

7.4  Baptism and the Lord’s Supper The early Christian thinker Tertullian (ca. 160–240 CE) left his stamp on Christian thinking with his proposition that God consists of one substance and three persons. This idea evolved into what is now known as the trinitarian conception of God. But Tertullian also left his theological signature on what is known as sacramental theology. He translated the Greek word μυστήριον (mystery) into the Latin sacramentum (something holy). Ever since, the Latin term became known as “sacrament” and any theology dealing with the sacraments as sacramental theology. At any rate, by translating μυστήριον into sacramentum Tertullian started an extensive and controversial theological debate about the meaning of the sacraments. Our interest in this section is what Paul has to say about baptism and the Lord’s Supper, the two universally practiced Christian rituals. The specific question for us is whether or not the theological claims embedded in sacramental theology have a formal and existential correspondence to our understanding of sin and salvation, and the distinction between the means and the mode of salvation. Concretely, can a person be saved by baptism or the Lord’s Supper? Baptism What does the apostle Paul teach us about baptism? Paul’s programmatic statement on his view of baptism is 1 Cor. 1:17: “Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel – and not with eloquent wisdom, so that

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the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power.” Because his call and focus was not on baptism, Paul is quick to clarify (1 Cor. 1:14–16); “I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one can say that you were baptized in my name. I did baptize also the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.” Paul leaves here no doubt that his apostleship had little to do with baptizing the believers in Christ. His call to preach the gospel did not entail an emphasis on baptism at all. In fact, one can even get the impression that he is careful not to be identified too closely as an apostle whose focus was on baptism. If anything, Paul prefers to distance himself from baptism in favour of his calling to proclaim the gospel. Nonetheless, Paul does have a reasonable understanding of the theological significance of baptism. In Rom. 6:3–4 he askes: “do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.”19 For Paul, the crucial element of baptism is in its analogical interpretation vis-à-vis the death of Christ.20 The act of baptism represents the dying of the old self. Purportedly, the immersion into water is the signifying analogy to the death of the person under the power of sin, while the rising from the water refers analogically to the resurrection. Moreover, the rising from the baptismal water is the beginning of the walk “in the newness of life.” Paul’s explanation of the meaning of baptism is at odds with Tertullian. In his treatise On Baptism, Tertullian says (1:1): “A treatise on our sacrament of water, by which the sins of our earlier blindness are washed away and we are released for eternal life will not be superfluous.” Further on in the same treatise Tertullian claims (12:1): “Since it is in fact prescribed that no one can attain to salvation without Baptism, especially in view of that declaration of the Lord, who says, ‘Unless a man shall be born of water, he shall not have life’.” When we contrast Paul with Tertullian, we can see that the latter adds an element that is absent from Paul. Nowhere does Paul allege that our sins – leave alone our sin – is washed away by baptism. Even more, Tertullian’s claim that “no one can attain to salvation without Baptism,” is a theological fabrication that is at great odds with Paul. This is not the place to discuss 19  Cf. Gal. 3:27: “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” 20  Cf. 1 Cor. 15:29 “what will those people do who receive baptism on behalf of the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized on their behalf.”

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Tertullian’s definition of a sacrament and his interpretation of baptism other than pointing to the long and controversial history of the theology of the sacraments. Crucial for our understanding of Paul is whether baptism is on the level of the means of salvation. We must determine whether a person can indeed be saved by baptism in the same way as we determined salvation to be God’s means of salvation as the four conjoint causes in the Aristotelian sense (see above chapter 5). The answer is undoubtedly in the negative. Baptism can save no one. Nowhere in Paul do we read of baptism as an act of God analogous to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Baptism is not a divine act on the same ontological level as the resurrection. Even though Paul says that in baptism we are baptized into Christ’s death, the act of baptism is not identical to the act of Christ’s resurrection. The latter is the ontological watershed of the abrogation of death itself whereas baptism is the acknowledgement of that transformation. To be clear, therefore, Paul does not teach that baptism belongs to the means of salvation. Tertullian, we must conclude, is incorrect in his claim that baptism is a requirement for salvation. If not belonging to the means of salvation, is baptism then a mode of salvation? As we worked out in the previous chapter, faith as the mode is correlated to the means in that faith acknowledges the truth and power of what happened in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. If so, one could argue that baptism is the acknowledgement of the same events and therefore also a mode of salvation. Udo Schnelle suggests that for Paul, baptism is the “Ort, wo Gottes universales Heilshandeln in Jesus Christus in der Partikularität der eigenen Existenz erfahren werden kann, wo sich der Übergang in das neue Sein konkret ereignet” (the place where God’s universal saving action in Jesus Christ can be experienced in the particularity of one’s own existence, where the transition into the new being takes place concretely).21 Schnelle is correct in relating baptism to the appropriation of the saving act of God – what we termed the means of salvation – as a particular existential moment of the believer’s new existence. Like faith itself, baptism does point to the new ontology of the believer’s life. But is it really the case when Schnelle claims that “die Taufe ist für Paulus rettendes Geschehen, weil sich hier real-geschichtlich die Befreiung von den Mächten der Sünde und des Todes für den einzelnen Christen vollzieht” (baptism is a saving event for Paul, because here the liberation 21  Udo Schnelle, “Taufe als Teilhabe an Christus,” in Paulus Handbuch, 332–337, here 332.

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from the powers of sin and death takes place for the individual Christian in a real-historical way).22 Schnelle argues in Tertullian fashion that for Paul baptism is more than a ritual that is merely symbolic. It is, rather, a ritual that signifies the real presence of God and executes its transformative power from sin and death to eternal life. The Pauline argument par excellence for this position, according to Schnelle, is Paul’s affirmation in 1 Cor. 15:29 of Christians’ vicarious baptism for the (non-Christian) dead. Even more, then, “Paulus spekuliert nicht über die Heilsnotwendigkeit der Taufe, sondern er geht selbstverständlich von ihrer Heilstatsächlichkeit aus” (Paul does not speculate about the necessity of baptism for salvation, but he naturally assumes that it is a fact of salvation).23 If, as Schnelle claims, baptism is for Paul a necessary fact of salvation, then it would be equal to faith; both could be considered as a mode of salvation. The difficulty of such a position is that Paul does not assign the same weight to baptism as he does to faith. Nowhere does Paul even hint that, unlike faith, baptism is required for salvation. Equally absent is a reference to baptism as a salvific requirement. There is also no connection with the promises and history of Israel. Abraham is for Paul a model of faith, but not of baptism. Through him, the Gentiles become members of the Messianic community by faith, but not by baptism. All of this means that faith and baptism are not on equal footing for Paul. It seems to me that the later sacramental understanding of baptism is not explicitly present in Paul. Can, for Paul, an un-baptized person be saved? Yes, I would argue, if there is the confession of faith as Paul outlined in Rom. 10:9–13. The Lord’s Supper Like baptism, Paul discusses the Lord’s Supper also in his Corinthian correspondence. In a rather extensive passage in 1 Cor. 11:17–34, the apostle warns against the abuses of that practice and attempts to clarify its true purpose. Here we have one of the rare instances where Paul grounds his theological authority in a tradition that he “received from the Lord” (παρέλαβον ἀπὸ τοῦ κυρίου). In 1 Cor. 11:23–26 Paul explains: “the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me’ (τοῦτο ποιεῖτε εἰς τὴν ἐμὴν ἀνάμνησιν). 25 In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the 22  23 

Schnelle, “Taufe als Teilhabe an Christus,” 333. Schnelle, “Taufe als Teilhabe an Christus,” 333.

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new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me’ (εἰς τὴν ἐμὴν ἀνάμνησιν). 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” The comment that applies to both the bread and the cup is “in remembrance of me.” The only reason Paul explicitly provides for the celebration of the Lord’s Supper is that of remembrance. What is remembered? The key aspect of the congregational memory is the death of Jesus “until he comes.” Jesus’s salvific death is also alluded to in the “blood” and explained in passing as “the new covenant.” In sum, then, Paul emphasizes that in the present celebration, the memory focusses on the past death (and resurrection) of Jesus and awaits his parousia in the future. From an existential point of view, Paul’s comments on the Lord’s Supper are as much, if not more, on the potentially socially divisive outcome of the celebration rather than its community-building capacity. The Corinthian church was inundated enough by divisions, splits and social classism, such that the celebration of the Lord’s Supper could have brought about genuine community. After all, the common focus was on the one memory that was the catalyst for personal and communal transformation, namely the death and resurrection of the Lord who is expected to return sooner than later. But nowhere does Paul even hint that the Lord’s Supper has by itself the status or significance of a salvific event. This memorial celebration is not equal to the means of salvation. Paul’s brief discussion of both baptism and the Lord’s Supper do not support the later theological view and implication that these Christian practices stand on equal footing with the means and mode of salvation. In short, neither baptism nor the Lord’s Supper are part of the means of salvation because neither one of them belongs to the four conjoint causes that together constitute the one means of salvation, as we examined in chapter 5.2. At first glance, it may seem that baptism and the Lord’s Supper may be considered a mode of salvation. One conceivably could argue that they function as a mode in that they presuppose the truth of the means of salvation and confirm the acceptance of that truth in the mode of faith precisely by expressing it through the ceremonies of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. It may thus be the case that both baptism and the Lord’s Supper could be seen as belonging to the level of faith, or at least as a kind of secondary faith, or a faith enacted in a ritual. The strongest reason against such a view is Paul’s understanding of salvation as outlined in his letters. Nowhere in the Pauline epistles does baptism or the Lord’s Supper take the place of faith; nowhere do they substitute faith or function as an equivalent. If we look once more at Paul’s

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benchmark statement for how a person receives salvation, none of the two practices is mentioned. To cite Rom. 10:10–13: “for one believes with the heart, leading to righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, leading to salvation. 11 The scripture says, ‘No one who believes in him will be put to shame.’ 12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him. 13 ‘For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved’.” In sum, while the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper are integral and important parts of the Christian life, they are not part of the means nor (most likely) the mode of salvation.

7.5  Repairing Sins As we just discussed, the redeemed life of faith, personally and sociologically embedded in the one church of Jesus the Messiah, exists both as the community of saints and sinners. The existential challenge in this basic two-fold division is that a community of saints is still able to commit sins. This fact is all too clearly evident in Paul’s dealing with his churches, the Corinthian church being a prime example. The reality of potential sinning in every church has nothing to do with a pessimistic view of God’s work in Christ or a low view of faith or the church, but everything with a correct understanding of the ongoing existential and, correspondingly, ontological reality of the redeemed life of Christians. What is at stake with sins? Let me be unmistakeably lucid on this point: The full force of our existential reading of Paul is perhaps nowhere else more visible and excruciating than in the understanding of what sin is and sins actually do in every person’s life and our world in its entirety. Existentially, the power of sin relentlessly drives sins that cause havoc and often an insurmountable chaos for every person in every corner of our earth. There is no person and no sphere of life excluded from the fact that sins are universal. This is the primary insight of our phenomenological analysis of sins. Everywhere the damage caused by sins is painfully evident and phenomenologically discernable. Along with Paul, we may be utterly grateful for God’s salvific provision of life in the death and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah, but we are not yet able to experience the full newness of that life here on earth while we are alive. It is our continued ontological and therefore existential daily reality that even as redeemed saints we find ourselves entangled in the throws of the power of sin and death.

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I will now briefly describe the existentiell-ontic realities of our lives entrapped in the various realms of being beset and disfigured by the ugliness of sins. It would be both convenient and easy to skip over this part in a scholarly discussion of Paul and satisfy ourselves with a few cursory remarks. But in order to understand Paul existentially, there is no shortcut through the paragraphs that follow. I am as bold as claiming that here we find a tipping point in our understanding of the apostle. We can either understand existentially what it means that we and the entire world are daily impacted by the ugliness of sins or we can go on being content with indulging in yet another round of Pauline exegesis removed from the exigencies of our daily Dasein. To understand sins existentially, we must name them. Violence.  If we would reduce the complex phenomenology of sins to a basic denominator, I would argue that the root of sin is violence. In its crudest form, all sins contain an element of violence in that they “violate” life, that is to claim that every act of sin disrupts, assaults and in one way or another destroys a part of life, sometimes even an entire life in a single moment. The violence specific to an act of sin is the element that diminishes the life of myself, the other, the community and our planet earth.24 Since every act of sin is never abstract but always occurs in an existential and concrete context, every such violating act is experienced by every person as an attack on one’s very life. The spectrum of violence in any act of sin ranges from hardly noticeable to the willful destruction of life. To be sure, a little lie is qualitatively less of an existential harm than the theft of one’s belongings, the destruction of one’s property, the assault on one’s life, the wars incited by dictators and the environmental raping of our planet. Nonetheless, in all these sins the common element is violence in one form or another. The extent of the sins of violence is so ubiquitous, so deeply entrenched in daily life in every place of the world, that it is hard for us to imagine a world without it. We simply cannot escape the “world whose order rests on violence.”25 If, for the sake of a utopian argument, it would be possible to remove only one evil thing in this world, without second thought, I would eliminate the possibility of violence. This one change would have immediate implications for the entire well-being of every child, woman and man, 24  Violence is always embedded in a personal, social and psychological context. Often violence is the outcome of a nihilistic worldview. See for example the recent work, Luis Aguiar de Sousa and Paolo Stellino (eds). Violence and Nihilism, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter 2022. 25 Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace. A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness and Reconciliation. Nashville: Abingdon Press 1996, 270.

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indeed for every group of people and every nation around the globe. But precisely because sin and sins are ontological, therefore we cannot escape its violence until the full realization of God’s salvific work. This is no admission of defeat, but rather a somber acknowledgment of the Pauline teaching of sin in its ontological reality. In the meantime, to work toward a world of peace, I see no other path forward for those who carry the name of the Messiah on their lips other than to embrace the conviction that violence is utterly unbecoming of Christians and incompatible with the teaching of Jesus and Paul. We must self-consciously and resolutely reject all forms of personal, social and ecclesial violence. The sinful forms of violence express themselves in all shapes and sizes, in sins small and large. A single word may have a sharp violent edge to it and cut deep into a person’s soul. Likewise, nonverbal gestures and clues can send potent violent signs that diminish another’s dignity, value and life. Our personal experiences of the various types of sins are not instantiations of unrelated happenings. A person’s experience of racial discrimination, for example, does not only happen on the personal level, but it is fueled by the perpetrator’s belonging to a system that condones the larger structures that allow for racism to show its ugly face. This points to a crucial fact: many sins we experience have their deep roots in structural and systemic networks we all participate in. Violence, then, is empowered and given its prominent stage by the structural social patterns of any society. To understand Paul, we must stop looking away all too conveniently from our own structures. Structural sins.  For most Christians the word “sins” invokes the picture that a person has committed some sort of personal wrong against another person. Typically, in Christian contexts, a sin is understood as an act of one individual committed against another individual that displeases God and will be judged in the future. Of course, this type of individual sin does exist widely and affects every person. But many sins are not personal, but to the contrary they are structural. This is to argue that many sins are so deeply implanted in our social, cultural, political, religious and economic structures, that we hardly even conceive of them as possibly being wrong, leave alone that they constitute the fertile ground for sins. As human beings everywhere, we are so strongly entrenched in structures that determine the details of our daily lives that it is almost impossible to see our existing structures as vehicles for sins. Unless we pause and reflect on how structural and systemic networks – usually but not always – benefit the few and disadvantage the masses, we will be mired in a deep theological muck with little chances to escape; and we will continue to grope along the

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surface in our understanding of the apostle Paul. Structural realities – as the French structuralist thinkers taught us – are human inventions and therefore unavoidably tied to the possibility of encouraging the committing of sins. But structures themselves are neither immutable nor perpetually fixed. When we speak of structural sins, what do we concretely mean? Structure may be defined as the social configuration of broadly accepted norms, assumptions and actions. These assumptions and actions may be held implicitly or explicitly, naively or deliberately, in part or in whole, occasionally or persistently. The key aspect of structural architecture is that each construct operates on the macro-relational level of society. This is the case when structures work positively for the well-being of a society or people as a whole, but also when a particular structure is intuitively rejected and merely tolerated by the majority of people. We are here concerned only with the latter structures. Though in principle every structure has a dormant potential for the eruptions of sins, there are some structures that by default will lead to sins. What comes to mind are the obvious examples of the Holocaust and Hiroshima. Those two events – though masterminded by individuals – were deeply embedded in evil structures that were complicit in the perpetration of a violence of the most contemptuous sort. We may also add the evils of colonialism and slavery as belonging to the most inhumane and sinful structures ever encountered by too many people on our planet. But structural sins are still close to home for most of us. Even though we have now finally dared to denounce some evil structures, colonialism, for example, is still pretty much with us. Curiously, to this day people still admire things such as the monarchy in the United Kingdom (the bygone words kingdom, king imply colonialism), the myth of royal blood and that “crown land” is owned by the British king in Canada and other former colonies. In the context of structural sins, we must also name poverty, homelessness and racism. The latter is always a subtext of colonialism. Again, it must be acknowledged that we have made progress in addressing racism directly in academic discourse, but the real task is to dismantle the racist and discriminatory structures that tolerate racism in disguised forms. Other social narratives that lead to structural sins are various countries’ militarism, despotism and allowance for possession of personal guns. Because all of these structures inevitably erupt into the destruction of life, all such structures are a breeding ground for sins. We cannot explain them away, least of all by reference to any biblical text or a constitutional guarantee.

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Political sins.  Political sins are a prime example of structural sins. Political structures directly impact the vast majority of people in every country. In case of dictatorial structures, it is quite apparent how existing structures are superimposed over a people against the will of the masses. A current case in point is Russia. Putin – megalomanic and narcissist like all dictators – solitarily controls his country with a tyrannical, aggressive and brutal fist. While he is the mastermind of evil structures, his accomplices are his henchmen. The structures set up for his evil regime are endless: instigating war on another nation, elimination of political dissidents, imprisonment for petty reasons of the most trivial sorts, corrupted legal system, oligarchic economic system, dismantling of free speech and free press and so on. The point is simply that such political structures are the pathways into multitudes of sins. It is the underlying political structures, tied to human beings who are ontologically tied to the power of sin, that are prescriptive of the destruction of life. Political structures that destroy life are not, however, only the malaise of repressive regimes. Equally, in western countries we find political structures that systemically chisel away at a respectful and dignified life. We may think of limited access to health care, tax laws that benefit the already wealthy, unaffordable higher education for many young people, failure to provide structures for youth employment, lack of support for mental health, prejudice against women in work and pay, inadequate housing and rent policies, failure to deal effectively and immediately with the climate crisis, and many more.26 Economical sins.  A subset of political structures are economic structures. Economic structures leave their traces everywhere on our planet. There is virtually no place on earth that is not directly or indirectly shaped by a local or global economic policy. Whether it be micro- or macroeconomic structures, the setup of these structures is typically the prerogative of those with power and wealth. The predictable outcome of economic structural arrangements is that there will be a small group of winners and a large group of losers. This is the case in the so-called north-south divide, but increasingly also within almost every country on all continents. Even in emerging economies, such as China, India and Brazil, the design of economic structures plays largely into the hands of the wealthy. By way of illustration, the origin of liberation theology had its impetus and starting point precisely in the misalignment of economic structures in 26  Cf. Mark G. Brett, Political Trauma and Healing: Biblical Ethics for a Postcolonial World. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 2016.

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South America, following the second world war. Gustavo Gutiérrez, the father of liberation theology, keenly observed how poverty in South America was predicated on economic structures that steadily eroded the lives of the masses of people. In his now classic opus A Theology of Liberation, Gutiérrez’s analysis of the economic situation provided the much-needed impetus for the Christian churches to become aware of their entanglement in the structural discrimination of economic injustice and dependency. He clearly perceived that developmentalism, the structure imposed by wealthy nations, powerful corporations and select financial institutions on poorer nations is “really ineffective in the long run and counterproductive to achieving a real transformation.”27 What was needed is not one-sided development but a liberation from the existing incapacitating structures. “Liberation in fact expresses the inescapable moment of radial change which is foreign to the ordinary use of the term development.”28 As a theologian, Gutiérrez fully understood that God’s salvation in Jesus Christ is not a matter of gradual development, step-by-step measures and so on to slowly improve the reality of sins. It does not work that way; it cannot work that way. The power of sin had to be defeated, once and for all. Economic structures, likewise, need a change that is equally real, effective, just and long-lasting. In the context of Paul, those who call on the name of Jesus the Christ are responsible for social justice. There is perhaps no single Pauline verse more appropriate than Gal. 6:2: “Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” As is the case with all structures that breed sins, economic structures are also seductive. With few exceptions, we as ordinary women and men are not directly responsible for the current structures that oppress the masses of people, drive them into substandard living, homelessness and poverty. It is not our fault that structures of the financial markets have opened the door wide for speculative stock trading and thus undermine the purpose of longer-term capital investment aimed at the economic stability of a company and its employees. We are also not to be blamed for national systems and international loopholes that allow mega corporations to evade taxes on an unthinkable scale. But we are enmeshed in these structural realities in an indirect way. By voting for political parties that openly support and exe27 Gustavo Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation. Translated by Sister Caridad Inda and John Eagleson. Maryknoll: Orbis Books, revised edition, 1988, 17. See also the postmodern analysis from an economical perspective by Franz J. Hinkelammert, El Mapa del Emperador. Determinismo, Caos, Sujeto. San José: Editorial DEI 1996. 28 Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation, 17.

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cute economic structures biased toward the elite and against social justice and the dire need to care for our planet, we have in small ways become complicit in potentially sinful structures. Environmental sins.  Structural and economical sins, in tandem with political failure, have created an unprecedented situation of a global crisis. The survival of our planet is the most pressing issue that we as one humanity must deal with. Nothing else but our survival is at stake, or more correctly the survival of the coming generations. The crisis is so urgent and immediate that we – all nations on our planet – must act without delay to alleviate an environmental catastrophe of unimaginable proportions. It is hard to put in words what is at stake. While the resolve to save the planet has never been as great, the inertia of politicians and corporate interests have never been more visible. My generation has utterly failed the coming generation and we continue to do so. To our shame, we let teenagers do the real work of protest while we sit back and smile at their youthful exuberance and keep on living as we have always done. I include myself in this indictment. We cannot afford any more time to resolutely oppose all forms of deforestation, be it in the Amazon or elsewhere. We must dare to make a complete and irreversible switch to clean and green energy, to drastically curtail raising cattle, pigs and poultry, to mobilize public transportation and to abandon the use of fossil fuels altogether. The enormity of that call for a clean planet is staggering. In our confrontation with the survival of our planet all the various strands of structural misalignments come together. In sum, the destruction of God’s good creation is a sin because it goes against the very life of God and all his creatures. For most of us, I imagine, a theology of creation was, to employ Albert Schweitzer’s term for Paul’s teaching on justification, a “secondary crater.” Given the weighty topics of salvation, Messiah, Israel, ethics and eschatology, there was little room for an adequate discourse on a theology of creation. This is not only deplorable in terms of theological thinking, but also it is now haunting us and screaming in our face in view of the climate crisis. Ethical sins.  When we think of sins, most likely we have in mind acts like stealing, lying, murdering and others in similar categories. These sins are personal misdeeds that we can measure against a moral benchmark. Usually that benchmark is based on the Decalogue and adapted by various religious contexts and cultural norms to suit a social group’s particular ethical concept. Though for the most part these ethical codes are fixed, there are discussions as to whether and to what extent existing codes must be modified to allow for postmodern inclusion of people who fall traditional-

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ly outside of a group’s accepted norms. One such example is our current conversation about gender and sexual orientation. We are without exception both culprits and victims alike of the sins that we loosely define as ethical. Everybody has told a lie; everyone has been lied to. We have all been dishonest, perhaps stole something, some have committed adultery, a few even committed murder. Depending on the personal circumstances of both victim and perpetrator, the spectrum of ethical sins ranges from minor to extremely severe. Some sins can be repaired, other remain forever irreparable. Ecclesial sins.  While it is beyond dispute that Christians are afflicted on a personal level by sins, it is a touchy, almost taboo, subject in many Christian circles, to shed light on the collective sins of entire churches, denominations and parachurch groups. However, such an investigation does belong to our attempt of understanding Paul existentially. I am speaking of the structural arrangements within many a church and denomination that encourage sins. For example, as I am writing this section, the Pope is visiting Canada to offer an apology for the role of the Roman Catholic Church in its role as abuser of children in residential schools. The victims were almost exclusively Indigenous children who suffered psychological, physical and sexual abuse. While many survived the nightmare of the residential school systems, thousands of children died and were namelessly buried in school yards. Even though the abuse happened at the hands of priests and nuns and many complicit teachers, the issue at stake is that there was an ecclesial structure in place that turned a blind eye to all the evil deeds. Some of these same structures are still in place today. It is now, unfortunately, an all too regular event to read in the media of another sexual abuse case by such and such a person in such and such a church or religious context. All along the Roman Catholic Church has known but downplayed, whitewashed and otherwise obfuscated whenever the victims dared to raise their voices. Such are the structures that empower the sins of the saints! Sinful abuse of children is however not only part of the Roman Catholic Church; every church, small country church and urban megachurch, of all denominations and confessions, are potentially and actually entrapped in structures that facilitate one of its members to fall into an act of sin. The sin may be committed by an individual, but the structure that facilitates it is that of the Christian community. Without excusing any sinful abuse of a child or any other person, in other words, without softening Christian sins, we must add in fairness another dimension to the issue. The structure that enables Christian sins is

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often supported by political and social structures that equally assist diverse acts of sin. In the case of the residential schools, the Canadian government was responsible for silently advocating a racist political structure aimed at Indigenous peoples. In the name of its first prime minister, Sir John A. MacDonald, a prototype of a colonialist who promoted the Aryan race long before Hitler, Canada sought to turn Indigenous peoples into white people. His de-Indigenization went so far as to deliberately starve some Indigenous groups to make them succumb to his expansionary plans. How does this dark chapter in Canadian history relate to an existential understanding of Paul? It does, in many direct ways. We will explain the connection below. The decline of the human body.  It is possible that we may hardly experience any of the structural or even personal sins mentioned above; or we may choose to be blissfully ignorant of what happens around us. Many sins may seem to be the issue of places “over there” and affect us little existentially. Still, as we finish our discussion of the various types of sins, there is one more point to consider: sin and the human body. The physical degeneration of life is nowhere more tangible than in the decline of the human body. As soon as we are born, we are on the road to physical death. This is a universal existential experience tied directly to our ontology of being in the grip of the power of sin and the sting of death. To be clear on this point, however, I must emphasize that the physical deterioration of the body is not on the same level as all the other sins we discussed above. It is not a sin to have a body, to exist in bodily form. In other words, the physical decline of the human body is by itself not an act of sin. The divine pronouncement of the goodness of all creation includes the human body, notwithstanding the reality that it is part of the fallen world and thus subject to a finite and corruptible existence that will end in death. Existentially it is a fact that every human being will experience physical weakness, illness, suffering and eventually death. Physical death is inevitable for every human being, but the road there will be unique for each person. The older we get, the greater the challenges of our body. We remarked earlier that every act of sin takes something away from life. When we age, with every illness or injury our body experiences a loss of life. Sometimes we can regain our health, but at other times our body will surrender strength and health for good. Since it is a common denominator of every sin that it diminishes life, we may also say that every sin, on a micro and macro scale, reduces the quality of our existence. This is why we must understand Paul existentially. Even as redeemed sinners, we continue to be

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exposed to the relentless reduction of existentiality by the mere fact that our very physical existence is being reduced to the point where we cease to have existence at all. Death, therefore, is a synonym for the loss of all earthly existence. To put it in different words, a non-existential understanding of death is impossible. The conglomeration of sins: the example of food.  There is perhaps no better example of what sins actually do in our world and how every person is affected by it, than food. I am speaking of food production, its distribution, its impact on water, its impact on our planet, its impact on our health, its entanglement with big business, its lobbying of politicians, its cost for the taxpayer, its downplaying by the medical profession, its reduction of personal life. As a concrete example, it suffices to single out our consumption of meat, dairy and sugar-laden soft drinks. There is an abundance of scientific publications to wake us up from our intoxicating sleep and finally to give up the consumption of these types of food. The total catastrophe brought about by cattle farming – leave alone the cruel conditions of farming itself and the abuse of the animals, leave alone the unholy use of water to raise the cattle of the world, leave alone the use of pesticides and hormones, leave alone the irrational evaporation of methane and nitrous oxide into our atmosphere every day, leave alone the environmental damage to soil, waterways, air and the atmosphere, leave alone the cancers caused by animal proteins, leave alone the shameless lies circulated by the dairy industry and the boneless politicians who have no clue – is just one example, a very serious one for sure, of how the entire world is entangled structurally and existentially in the cumulative outcome of virtually all of the sins mentioned above. The structural network that disguises the corporate, political and environmental sins can all too easily seduce all of us, either actively or passively, because in our thoughtlessness we pay no attention to it. For many of us, the consumption of meat and dairy is as normal as breathing; the coming generations will laugh at us for our ignorance of the negative health benefits and our naïve insanity to fall prey to corporate propaganda and greed. But for now, sadly, the entire meat and dairy industry is nothing but a structural triumph of the power of sin and death. For those readers who by now wonder, no, I have not lost sight of our focus on Paul and his thought. And no, I have not lost my mind nor my clear thinking, and no, I am not an angry old man who has to settle a bill. The point that I want to underscore with such examples as in this section is precisely the fact of how close real life and all its threatening problems are to the core of Paul’s thinking on the predicament of life and how we human beings actually experience it day in and day out! We must listen to Paul, we

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must hear his voice about the power of sin and our committing of sins, but we must go beyond Paul. Of course, we can stick our heads into the sand, we can rationalize everything away, we can continue to betray the coming generations, we can laugh at an existentialist reading of Paul, we can sing pious hymns while the world is burning, we can be perplexed why this generation is turning away from the gospel and we can blame whomever we want for the perils of our world. But we cannot escape the fact that the sins briefly outlined above are irrevocably connected with the power of sin and death, to which we are all enslaved. Every morning is a new beginning of God’s grace, but every morning we are encroached by some sins, wherever we go and whatever we do and see. This is nothing unusual, but pure existence à la Paul. Let us place our description of sins into a larger context. The title of this section is “Repairing Sins.” There is a substantial difference between the forgiveness and the repairing of sins. In broad terms, forgiveness is the culprit’s theological, and as a consequence, the psychological act of genuine confession of one’s sin and the request to be forgiven by the victim. The reparation of sins is the genuine existential attempt of the offender to compensate and restore the act of sin as much as this is still possible. Reparation is thus a self-conscious, remorseful and deliberate act of restitution to make whole that which was broken. Regarding the forgiveness of sins, one classic and still extremely relevant discussions is Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s timeless opus Life Together.29 Bonhoeffer situates the forgiveness of sins within the Christian community’s celebration of the Lord’s Supper. Blindness or cheap optimism in the face of the not-yet defeat of sin and death in the community of saints will without any doubt, sooner or later, lead to a false and hollow spiritual community.30 It is easy to be with saints, it is love’s hardest challenge to be with sinners. Bonhoeffer cautioned that one of the issues of a shallow Christian community is the danger of generalizing sins, so that they lose their concrete character and amount to nothing more than “cheap grace.” But in order to overcome sins, we must be able to articulate and name them. From an existential perspective, this is a crucial step toward the redeemed life of faith. This is so for the individual believer, the Christian community and for all Christian contexts everywhere. 29  Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together and Prayerbook of the Bible (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English 5). Edited by Geffrey B. Kelly. Translated by Daniel W. Bloesch and James H. Burtness. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 1996. 30 Cf. DBWE 5, 108–118.

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The matter is even more challenging for the reparation of sins. It is humiliating enough to stammer words of regret and confession and ask the victim for forgiveness. It is, however, not enough to merely ask for forgiveness when it is possible to repair the existential loss due to an act of sin. In many circumstances, especially regarding personal sins, reparation is possible. In cases of tangible sins, I can rectify the loss. I can return a stolen item, I can pay for damages caused by my sin and I can otherwise make every attempt to offer restitution for the evil committed. But what about large-scale structural sins? If these types of sins are Christian structural sins, then the offenders must equally ask for forgiveness and offer reparation for the sins committed. A current case in point is the Pope’s apology to Indigenous peoples of Canada. He has now made a public apology; in other words, he has accepted culpability for priestly sins and asked for the forgiveness of these sins. But depending on how one interprets his words of remorse, he has not taken responsibility for the structural component of the Roman Catholic Church. In short, to validate a confession of sin and make the forgiveness existentially real for the victims, reparation must be made. Otherwise, the name of Christ will be profaned and the victims deprived existentially once more. But what about large-scale structural sins committed by secular political or economic perpetrators? What about colonialism and its hideous sins, such as blatant racism, disregard for women and the shameful slave trade? The principle remains the same. Colonial nations that raped Africa and the Americas are still responsible for the enormity of the sins committed. Though we may argue that these sins were the results of vast political structures, it is noteworthy that the Roman Catholic Church in the case of Spain, and the Church of England in the case of Britain were collaborators with the colonial networks; there are several other countries that fall into the same category. The independence of once colonized lands is not enough a vindication from the criminal sins committed by these nations. If justice is not reduced to mockery, reparations for the colonized victims are a necessary step of reconciliation, at whatever high costs for the former colonizers.

7.6  Authentic but Fragmentary Existence We must now connect our insights of the reparation of personal and structural sins, via Kierkegaard, with our discussion of Paul and the new existence under the lordship of Jesus Christ. One of the early existentialist

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thinkers, Søren Kierkegaard, perceived very lucidly how the discussion on sins opens an authentic understanding of the Christian faith. He hypothesizes that “sin, the fact that you and I are sinners (the individual), people have abolished, or they have illicitly abated it.”31 In other words, Kierkegaard claims that the average Christian has very little use for sin, sins and sinners and “learning,” by which he means academic theology which “has invented the doctrine of … sin in general.”32 When biblical and systematic theology demote discourse on sin and sins to the level of doctrine, then it has lost its sting, or in the spirit of Kierkegaard, its existential focal point and footprint. If merely doctrine, then where is the impact of sin on real life? At this point we encounter one of the most radical concepts in Kierkegaard, a kind of “anticlimactic” view on sin, a position also valid vis-àvis much of Pauline scholarship. It is his atrocious claim that “only consciousness of sin is the entrance, is the vision, which, by being absolute respect, can see the gentleness, loving-kindness, and compassion of Christianity,” though Kierkegaard is fully aware that such a claim makes Christianity “a sort of madness or the greatest horror.”33 Not to be misunderstood he repeats himself: “only through the consciousness of sin is there entrance into it [Christianity], and the wish to enter it by any other way is the crime of lèse-majesté.”34 Kierkegaard insists on this horrible and mad consciousness of sin because only in its obverse, namely “the power on the other side being grace,”35 is it possible to regain what he thinks has been lost in Christianity. “To be a Christian,” says Kierkegaard, “has become a thing of naught, mere tomfoolery, something which everyone is a matter of course, something one slips into more easily than into the most insignificant trick of dexterity.”36 The problem with this automatic Christianity is that it gravely distorts the true character of the Christian faith. “A historical Christianity is galimatias [i.e., nonsense] and unchristian confusion,” because “true Christians… are contemporary with Christ.”37 Here, then, is the crux of the matter. If Kierkegaard is correct, then the essence of Christianity is not the 31  Søren Kierkegaard, Training in Christianity, translated by Walter Lowrie, edited by John F. Thornton and Susan B. Varenne. New York: Vintage Books 2004, 62; translation slightly altered. 32 Kierkegaard, Training in Christianity, 62; original emphasis. 33 Kierkegaard, Training in Christianity, 62. 34 Kierkegaard, Training in Christianity, 62. 35 Kierkegaard, Training in Christianity, 62. 36 Kierkegaard, Training in Christianity, 61. 37 Kierkegaard, Training in Christianity, 61.

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adoption of a historical account of the life of Jesus Christ, or the agreement with doctrines that explain and apply to his life. The reason for rejecting a historical Christianity is that “the past is not reality – for me: only the contemporary is reality.”38 Genuine Christian faith “has everything to do with the contemporary Christ,” because only “his earthly life possesses the eternal contemporaneousness.”39 All of this points to Kierkegaard’s understanding that the exclusive character of Christianity – or better: the Christian faith – is not a doctrine, not an insight into learning, not a matter of logical deduction following principles of reason, nor a theology or a creed; it is a matter of being drawn by faith deep into our contemporary existence, into here and now in our everyday routine-filled lives. What Kierkegaard has in mind with his understanding of the contemporary Christ, Stephen Westerholm terms appropriately, without reference to the philosopher, “an existential faith,”40 or as we suggested in chapter 6, we may also speak of the fides qua creditur, namely that faith is believing as an existential act. Kierkegaard’s argument is that this kind of faith is existential precisely amid the knowledge and experience of the power of sin and the resulting sins. Faith becomes existential not in knowing the doctrines about Christ, but in trusting in the promises of God in faith, precisely in the midst of the sins that assault us and threaten our lives. The authenticity of faith, or better the life that is lived in the full existential submission to the reality of both good and evil, is what Kierkegaard understands as truly Christian. It is truly Christian because it takes full account of both the contemporary ontological state (redeemed but still able to commit sins) and the new creation that we are in Jesus the Christ (who has once and for all defeated death). We have thus come full circle: our description of sins in the previous section can now be corroborated with the existential faith of the genuine Christian. Only against the backdrop of the horrors of structural and personal sins does one’s existential and genuine faith emerge in our contemporary existence. A merely historical faith, as Kierkegaard says, is nothing more than a Christian confusion. To push a step further, Christof Landmesser raises the interesting question vis-à-vis Heidegger and Bultmann and asks whether the redeemed life in Christ can be understood as an existential category, in Heidegger’s ter-

38 Kierkegaard,

Training in Christianity, 58. Training in Christianity, 59; emphasis added. 40 Stephen Westerholm, “Righteousness, Cosmic and Microcosmic,” in Law and Ethics in Early Judaism and the New Testament. WUNT 383. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2017, 352. 39 Kierkegaard,

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minology an Existenzial.41 The two-fold question is thus whether the Pauline designation of being “a new creation” in Christ is an existential category and whether as such it is evidence of the authentic life (Heidegger’s Eigentlichkeit)? To begin with the first part of the question, Bultmann is correct in arguing that genuine authenticity of life (Eigentlichkeit des Daseins) and therefore the truth of existence (die Wahrheit der Existenz) is the exclusive matter of the authenticity that comes by faith. Landmesser wonders whether faith can also be understood as a new existential category (neues Existenial) because, at least theologically speaking, the person of faith lives as a new creation with new structures of being (Seinsstrukturen).42 Could we even push it this far to say that we have to understand the Church – as the community of faith – as a new existential category, since it is the sum of all existentially changed new believers? My own position is that the new existential structures of the person of faith in Christ do not amount to a new existential category in the sense of Heidegger. As we worked out in chapter 3.10, for Heidegger the main criterion for being designated an existential category is its ontological universality in Dasein. This is not the case regarding the new creation, notwithstanding Paul’s claim that “so if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; look, new things have come into being” (2 Cor. 5:17). While the claim is true for the believer it is not true as a universal ontological reality. Regarding the second part of the question, whether the person of faith in Christ lives now in the truth of existence and thus enjoys the full spectrum of authenticity, which Heidegger called Eigentlichkeit? To be sure, faith opens up a reconfigured understanding of who a person is in Christ. The power of sin has been once and for all defeated, death is no longer an anxiety-provoking terminal point of life and the new creation will be ontologically completed; these are all aspects that constitute the truth of our being as a new creation. But still, the provisionality of the new ontological state is such that full Eigentlichkeit is not possible. The quality of even a life of faith necessarily remains only an earthly fragment of authenticity. And this is precisely a key point of existentialist thinking since Kierkegaard: the truth of our Dasein, especially as it also pertains to the hideous mode of our contemporary 41 Christof

Landmesser, Wahrheit als Grundbegriff neutestamentlicher Wissenschaft. WUNT 113. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 1999, 312–313. 42 Landmesser, Wahrheit als Grundbegriff neutestamentlicher Wissenschaft, 313.

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existence in the ongoing throngs of sins, is paradoxically the authenticity of our lives. It is authentic because even though we still experience it, the deceiving veil of the power of sin as a final death sentence has been lifted from our being, including body, mind and soul. Its final completion, though, rests in the day of hope. It is in this vein that Gadamer (with reference to Lacan) speaks of the Unerfüllbarkeit des Verlanges (désir for Lacan).43 There will always be – for ontological reasons – an existential element of unfulfillment. Even as redeemed from the eternal grip and power of sin, we cannot completely shake its strictures on our everyday Dasein. Some of our desires will be fulfilled, quite passionately, but others will remain unsatisfied, equally as intensely. Authenticity will always be fragmentary.

43  Cf. Hans-Georg Gadamer, “Grenzen der Sprache,” in GW 8, Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr 1993, 350–361. See also Jacques Lacan, Écrits. A Selection. Translated by Alan Sheridan. New York: W. W. Norton 1977, viii, on désir in the context of besoin (need) and demande (demand).

Chapter 8

The Redemptive Life The ultimately responsible question is how the coming generation is to go on living. Dietrich Bonhoeffer1

Even as a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17) we are constantly confronted with the issue of how to live in “the time that remains.”2 The existential issue we are challenged with is the question of how our biblical and theological insights into the dynamics of salvation, with its two distinct facets of the means and the mode of salvation, translate into our daily routine of living out our faith as authentic human beings. As we concluded in the last chapter, though striving for authenticity will be fragmentary, it is still worth our full attention. Some of the concrete questions we will examine in this regard are the grounding of ethics in ontology, the perplexity of moral perfectionism, ethics and the Messiah, the dilemma of guilt, the inclusion of the other, the embrace of eros, living in this world and hoping for the world to come. In the metaphor of building our Pauline house, the importance of ethics may be compared to the dynamics of family life once a new house is inhabited. As soon as people have moved into the house, furnished their rooms and start creating their social life, there are rules of engagement, some implicit and some explicit. The outer shell of the finished house is important, but the real, that is to say the existential significance, happens among the people who now live in the house. In terms of understanding Paul, ethics follows the means and mode of salvation in the sense that it is the next step after completing the structure of the new house. Real life only starts once 1  Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English 8). Edited by John W. de Gruchy. Translated by Isabel Best, Lisa E. Dahill, Rein­hard Krauss, Nancy Lukens, Barbara and Martin Rumscheidt and Douglas W. ­Stott. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2010, 42. 2  This is the title of Giorgio Agamben’s book on Paul, The Time that Remains. A Commentary on the Letter to the Romans. Translated by Patricia Dailey. Stanford: Stanford University Press 2005. The time that remains is “messianic time.”

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the family moves in; but how do the family members relate to each other, the neighbours and visitors?

8.1  Ontology and Ethics As we have argued all along in this book, as human beings we are enslaved to the power of sin. All aspects of our being are potentially suspect to be inundated by this vicious power over and within us, including our ethics. In other words, the ground for our ethical failures is in the power of sin. The existential enslavement of sin complicates our ethical lives to a great deal and is responsible for our failure and disappointment to live the good life. In other words, sin has a profoundly disturbing effect on our ethical comprehension, decisions and lives. How then do we understand our Dasein in terms of our ontological realities and our desire to live a renewed life under the lordship of Jesus Christ? How can we understand our ethical grounding? As many scholars have argued, in the words of Westerholm, it would “be difficult to find a better starting point” for considering the foundation of Pauline ethics “than the letter-spirit antithesis.”3 It may even be considered “the key to Pauline ethics.”4 This antithesis points to Paul’s ethical grounding as a Pharisee in Torah and as the apostle of Christ to a new ethical empowerment through the divine Spirit. And yet, Paul’s ethical framework is much more flexible than being bound to the binary opposition letter versus spirit. Our purpose is not so much in explicating Pauline ethics as such, but rather the ontological foundation or grounding of our being vis-à-vis our ability to act as ethical subjects. When Christians speak of Pauline ethics, the concern is typically in attempting to understand how Paul articulates ethical principles and, by extension, how we today can adopt these principles in our own lives. If so, there are two distinct levels of interest that should not be confused. On the one hand, there is the task of analyzing Pauline texts and describing what we think the apostle had to say about ethics. This task is an exegetical and theological undertaking. It is about Paul’s ethics. On the other hand, if we want to know what Pauline ethics mean today, and if we are interested in 3  Stephen Westerholm, “Letter and Spirit: the Foundation of Pauline Ethics,” in Law and Ethics, 315–336, here 335. For a brief survey of Pauline ethics see also Hermut Löhr, “Zur Eigenart paulinischer Ethik,” in Paulus Handbuch, 440–444 and Ruben Zimmermann, “Die Ethik der Kirche,” in Paulus Handbuch, 433–439. 4  Westerholm, “Letter and Spirit: the Foundation of Pauline Ethics,” 330.

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shaping our lives according to historical ethical principles, then we are immediately cast back again to the conundrum of what Kierkegaard has so clearly identified as the issue of contemporaneousness. Just as we discussed in the previous chapter, namely that we can have access to the historical Christ only as the contemporary Christ (see above chapter 7.6), in the same way we can have the ethics of the historical Paul only as contemporary ethics. Our option is either to be content with a knowledge of the historical assessment of Pauline ethics, or our contemporary appropriation of Pauline ethics. There is no such thing as non-contemporary Pauline ethics. What then is a contemporary Pauline ethic? In short, we may say that appropriating Pauline ethics in our contemporary context is the engagement with Pauline ethics in our existential context. Such an engagement does not entail the simple taking over of Pauline ethical principles and applying them to what we think may be an identical situation for us today. It does, moreover, also not mean to strive for a literal reading of the ethical passages in Paul and then to cut and paste them anachronistically into our postmodern lives. Pauline ethics are not available to us as a historical and timeless instrument, but only as a contemporary sifting that is appropriate to the uniqueness of our Dasein. Our ethical contexts are not the same of Paul, even though there may be overlap. In other words, a contemporary Pauline ethic is shifting the focus away from the historical context of the apostle while holding on to its underlying principles and inserting those into our existential circumstances when possible. How can we think of and apply Pauline ethics existentially?5 First a matter of definition. To claim that a Pauline ethic must be a contemporary ethic and thereby existentially relevant requires an openness toward being and Dasein that is typically not part of a deontological understanding of ethics. Paul’s ethics were to a large extent deontological and teleological. The term deontological derives its etymology from the Greek word δέον (duty, obligation) and λόγος (reason, study). The main dynamic of a deontological ethic is rendering the duty or obligation of obedience to a code of ethics because of the good intent inherent in the law code. The good action itself is primary over the potential good outcome of the action. In Paul’s ethical universe, Torah played undoubtedly a deontological foundation. In 1 Cor, 9:8, Paul rhetorically asks: “Do I say this on human authority (κατὰ ἄνθρωπον)? Does not the law also say the same?” Similarly, the passage 5 

Cf. Friedrich Wilhelm Horn and Ruben Zimmermann (eds.), Jenseits von Indikativ und Impertiv. Kontexte und Normen neutestamentlicher Ethik, vol.  1. WUNT 238. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2009.

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Rom. 2:17–24 indicates the apostle’s understanding of the deontological function of Torah. The law is “a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth” (Rom. 2:19–20). In particular, Paul seems to esteem the Decalogue (reference to stealing, adultery and theft in Rom. 2:22–23) as a deontological document. It is a self-evident given for the apostle that the Decalogue and Torah are to be followed without questioning since they have their origin in the God of Israel. Another deontological norm for Paul are the words or commands of Jesus. For example, in 1 Cor. 7:10, Paul is straightforward as to the origin of his ethical advice. “To the married I give this command – not I but the Lord – that the wife should not separate from her husband.” Here the apostle’s authority is based on a Jesuanic exhortation (cf. Matt. 5:31– 32). Similarly, in 1 Thess. 4:15 Paul says explicitly “this we declare to you by the word of the Lord” namely “that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have died.”6 Like any deontological conception of ethics, Paul also assumed that obedience to the source of law is in itself a sufficient foundation for ethics as the good is inherent in the law code. The duty to obey such a good law code becomes the catalyst for the ethical life. For Paul, the concrete and faithful obedience to Torah and Jesus’ pronouncements implied a sort of “Pauline imperative” in the way that Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative has become normative for deontological ethics in a wider context. In a sense, we could say that Paul subscribed to what has become known since the early Enlightenment as a divine command theory of ethics. Ethical duty and obligation arise from God’s command and are therefore normative and good. The dutiful action is primary, the end or outcome of an action only secondary, regardless of its consequences for human well-being. There is, however, also a teleological side to Paul’s ethical understanding. Whereas in a deontological conception of ethics an act is moral and good because of its divine origin, in a teleological understanding of ethics an action is moral and good because it achieves a good end (τέλος) or outcome.7 Good examples are Paul’s exhortation in Rom. 14:13 to “pursue 6  In 1 Cor. 9:14 Paul notes: “In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel.” Here Paul employs a word of Jesus as the deontological foundation to remind the Corinthian congregation that he too must be paid as an apostle who preaches the gospel. 7  It is instructive that in his debate with the Pharisees Jesus sometimes rejected a deontological approach to Torah. This is evident, for example, in his view of the Sab-

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what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding” and in 1 Cor. 14:5 to use one’s gifts “so that the church may be built up.” In both cases Paul has the greater end and good in view, namely the church as a whole. Paul’s use of deontological and teleological categories as ethical guidelines does not, however, exhaust his multi-level understanding of ethics. Zimmermann has demonstrated that Paul employed a multitude of ideas, norms, modes, terminology and so on to articulate a specific ethical matter.8 It would be an oversimplified verdict to consign Pauline ethics to an either-or approach. His nuanced understanding, for example, of the dynamic and tension between a deontological and teleological approach to ethics can be seen in different examples. To be sure, Paul speaks of “good and evil” (cf. Rom. 12:21, 16:19; 2 Cor. 5:10) in general terms but also more detailed of “good or well (καλῶς) and better (κρεῖσσον)” regarding the question of marriage versus singleness (cf. 1 Cor. 7:38). He does so because of his apocalyptic mindset in 1 Cor. 7 where he thinks that in the end a single life brings less challenges and troubles. Another example where Paul seems to move away from a deontological to a more teleological position is the matter of circumcision. After briefly discussing it in the context of his Jewish fellows, he insists in Rom. 2:29 that “circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not the written code.” We remarked at the beginning of this chapter that almost all Pauline scholars take the letter-spirit antithesis as a starting point for or the main characteristic of Pauline ethics. To a certain degree it is true that this antithesis marks the beginning and controls much of his thought on ethics. However, from an existential understanding of ethics in Paul, the significance of the antithesis lies completely elsewhere. The very two-pronged definition of letter and spirit points to the ontological tension between old and new creation. The old person apart from Jesus Christ is bound to the letter and the person of faith is bound to the new being created in the resurrection of Christ. This broad ontological categorization is largely true, but it is insufficient for explaining and understanding Pauline ethics. Ontologically speaking, the letter versus spirit antithesis is not really an antithesis because all human subjects – Jews and Christians – continue to be constrained by it. To say that Pauline ethics is grounded in ontology is simply the affirmation that even those, both Jews and Christians, who have appropriated a new life in the risen Christ continue – indeed as we have bath, in that the Sabbath was to be observed in view of human well-being (a teleological emphasis) and not or the sake of the commandment (a deontological prominence). 8  Zimmermann, “Die Ethik der Kirche,” see especially the diagram 438 that gives a detailed list of norms etc. and Pauline references (limited to Corinthians and Galatians).

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said so many times – are unable to leave behind completely the “letter” part of their existence. The key insight is that all redeemed persons of faith must inevitably continue to work out their ethics in the tension of an ontological duality. Such a duality has its ground in the mere fact that all people in Christ are still bound up with a hamartiological ontology. No existence can shake off the ongoing grip of sin’s power over our contemporary lives. To say that ethics for the Christian person are existentially encumbered by an ontology that may still draw a person back into moments of unredeemed thinking, acting and living does in no way detract from the redeeming effect of the risen Christ. Post-Easter faith is grounded in the risen Christ who constitutes the actual/potential power (δύναμις) to carry out the new life already here on earth. Notwithstanding our ontological duality of both a hamartiological and christological duality and possibility, christological empowered ethics should be the normative and immanent standard of the life of faith. When we look at the congregations that Paul established, when we read the letters that he sent to those same congregations and examine the various ethical issues he addresses, then it becomes immediately obvious that the apostle engages a host of themes, concepts, norms, methods and so forth. He is in a very deep sense existentially concerned for the well-being of his churches and therefore does not subsume all ethical decisions under a deontological denominator. In fact, I would argue, it is humanly speaking impossible to decide all ethical questions exclusively on a deontological basis. Precisely because we are human, we use various ethical procedures intuitively. Our very existence forbids that we are locked into an ethical box that blocks our view of the real world with its real problems. Paul’s ethical sphere was no different: he had to navigate through many ethical storms to not cheapen the lordship of Christ, diminish the value of the human being, belittle the social tension in his congregations while at the same time affirming the full complexity of human existence. Taking the letter-spirit dynamic one step further, my own approach to Pauline ethics is what Michael Braunschweig calls Ethik als Existenzhermeneutik,9 ethics as a hermeneutic for existence. The reason for discussing Pauline ethics as a hermeneutic for existence lies in its raison d’être: ethics by definition is not abstract but deeply related to the concrete exigencies of daily life. Every act is an existential act be it a good or evil one. The hermeneutical aspect of ethics is precisely in the crucible of discerning the best 9  Cf.

Michael U. Braunschweig, Ethik als Existenzhermeneutik. Zur Grundlegung der Ethik zwischen Kategorizität und Kontingenz. RPT 118. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2022.

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ethical outcome of an act on the basis of both our old hamartiologically entangled selves and the new being in Christ, empowered by the Spirit.

8.2  No Moral Perfectionism It we take Paul’s theological framework as the foundation for his ethical flexibility between a deontological and teleological dynamic for the life of faith, then we must pause and reflect on the ideal of moral perfectionism. To state the conclusion upfront: our continued state of ontological dualism – the redeemed state in Christ and its corollary of a Spirit-empowered ethic, but also the possibility to fall back momentarily into the grip of the power of sin and a resulting failure in our ethical intention – makes moral perfection an impossibility. No person in Christ can be morally perfect as long as she or he lives on earth. Our ontology precludes the ethical perfection of our existence. Concretely we can say with confidence that good ethics, even good Pauline ethics, do not make us good. The goal of ethics is not to make us good or better people, if good means more acceptable in the eyes of God. Because of our ontology and the existential structures of our being, no good action whatsoever can make us good. As we have overwhelming argued in this study, our ontology is predicated on the power of sin and its accompanying acts of sin. Neither sin nor sins can be made good by a good ethical deed! This is a theologically untouchable dictum for it implies that no number of good deeds can change our ontological status before God. And this then is the reason why moral perfectionism is an ethical utopia of the highest order. The aspiration of moral perfectionism is at worst a disguised support for salvation based on works and at best a misunderstood notion of sin and sins. If the latter would be understood, as I have argued in this book, then it would be apparent that no moral perfection can achieve anything in view of our salvation. To be fair, those who espouse the ideal of Christian moral perfection would object that it has nothing to do with salvation and everything with an obedient life of faith in Christ. Indeed, this may be so, but it eschews the reality based on our ontological and existential structures of Dasein. No person can carry the burden of moral perfectionism because it will surely fail. For ontological reasons, it cannot succeed. The psychological burden and the stress on the mental well-being of a person entrapped in the unChris­tian responsibility to be morally perfect is the sure recipe to ruin a person’s emotional intelligence, spiritual maturity and physical health.

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We can go one step further. The idea of moral perfectionism in the life of the Christian is one of the most misguided and possibly emotionally damaging ideas in many a Christian community. As moral perfectionism is an extreme form of an un-Christian hermeneutic of absolute deontological ethics, it is inevitably a damaging form of legalism and flies in the face of both Jesus and Paul. The root of moral perfectionism is deeply embedded in the toxic soil of literal hermeneutics. These are harsh words, but they are congruent with our existential reality. As Tillich has observed shrewdly, “whoever makes Jesus the Christ into a giver of absolute laws for thinking and acting”10 has misunderstood and distorted the message and intention of his life. He did not, in any way, aspire to bring us “an absolutism of dogmatic or moral character.”11 What Jesus the Christ left us is the law of love, as also the apostle Paul teaches his congregations.

8.3  The Law of the Messiah Pauline ethics is predicated on Pauline soteriology. The apostle’s renewed post-Damascus vision of salvation for both Jews and Gentiles left its marks on Paul’s thinking and practice vis-à-vis Torah.12 The reconfigured starting point is the triad Messiah, Torah (letter) and Spirit. More precisely, Jesus the Messiah is the main reason why Paul felt pressed to reconfigure his view of Torah and the significance of the Holy Spirit for the believers’ ethical lives. If so, it seems to me that it is more accurate to say that the Messiah is the foundation of Pauline ethics, rather than the letter-spirit antithesis. The former shapes Paul’s thinking about the latter. Paul’s ethical reconception is the result of believing that Jesus is the Messiah, while the empowerment for the new ethical life comes from the Spirit. Paul’s most obvious connection between Messiah and Torah is in Gal. 6:2: “Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ” (ἀλλήλων τὰ βάρη βαστάζετε καὶ οὕτως ἀναπληρώσετε τὸν νόμον τοῦ Χριστοῦ). What is the meaning of “the law of Christ” in this context? 13 Is Paul speaking of the Torah from Sinai or does he have in mind 10  Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press 1951, vol.  1, 152. 11 Tillich, Systematic Theology, vol.  1, 152. 12  On the function of Torah in Paul see the brief survey in Martin Meiser, “Das Verhältnis zur Tora,” in Paulus Handbuch, 444–449. 13  For a discussion of “the law of Christ” see Hans Dieter Betz, Galatians. A Com-

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a law in the sense of a principle? Since in biblical Judaism a Torah was not directly given by the Messiah, it seems unlikely that Paul would now connect a Torah, old or new, with the Messiah. The reason is that he is adamantly arguing in his letters that there is no salvation by works, including the works of the Torah. If salvation comes by faith in the Messiah, then it would be counterintuitive for Paul to establish a (new) Torah of the Messiah. Moreover, because Paul does not conceive of the law of Christ as a soteriological category, he may have thought of it as an ethical principle. This view is congruent with what Paul says in Rom. 8:2: “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.” Here Paul employs the term νόμος twice, but surely not in the sense of the Sinai Torah. The law of sin and death is simply a reference to the ontological reality of our Dasein. For all these reasons, it seems that Paul envisions the law of Christ in Gal. 6:2 as an ethical code. He does so in a rather broad sense by postulating that the fulfillment of the law is love.14 When Paul sees the law fulfilled in love, he is most likely drawing on a specific Jesuanic tradition. In Mark 12:29–31 we read that when Jesus was asked about the greatest commandment, he “answered, ‘The first is, “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” The second is this, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”15 While Jesus established that the greatest commandments are those of love – love of God and love of other human beings – Paul conceivably took Jesus’ pronouncement and understood it as “the law of Christ” in Gal. 6:2. In addition, I think it is a reasonable assumption that Paul was familiar with the tradition of elevating the mitzvah of the love of neighbour (cf. Lev. 19:18) mentary on Paul’s Letter to the Churches in Galatia. Hermeneia Commentaries. Philadelphia: Fortress Press 1979, 298–301. Betz notes that the second part of Gal. 6:2 is Paul’s interpretation of the first part, a commonplace Greek praise of friendship. The expression “the law of Christ” is “strange” (299) and “remains a puzzle” (300), especially when one attempts to understand it as the Mosaic Torah, a position that Paul has “repeatedly rejected” in Galatians. 14  I agree with Franz Mussner, Der Galaterbrief. Herders Theologischer Kommentar. Freiburg: Herder, 4th ed. 1981, 399, who comments that “the law of Christ” in Gal. 6:2 is “das Gesetz der gegenseitigen Liebe” (the law of reciprocal love). 15  Most likely the emphasis on the love of neighbour was not Jesus’ original idea but a rather ubiquitous Jewish one. Sifra (third century rabbinic commentary on the book of Leviticus), Kedoshim 2:4.12, for example, says: “‘Love your neighbor as yourself’ – Rabbi Akiva says: ‘This is a great general principle in the Torah’.” Cf. Schalom Ben-Chorin, Theologia Judaica. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1982, on Jesus and Pharisaic traditions, 18–19.

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because it was upheld in at least some Pharisaic circles. One of the important Tannaim, Rabbi Akiva, is reported, in the Jerusalem Talmud, Nedarim 9:4, to have said that love of neighbor is “a great principle in Torah.”16 At any rate, like Jesus himself, Paul also argues in Gal 5:14 that “the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (ὁ γὰρ πᾶς νόμος ἐν ἑνὶ λόγῳ πεπλήρωται, ἐν τῷ ἀγαπήσεις τὸν πλησίον σου ὡς σεαυτόν). In Rom. 13:8 Paul again brings together law and love. In Rom. 13:8 he exhorts to “owe no one anything, except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law” (μηδενὶ μηδὲν ὀφείλετε εἰ μὴ τὸ ἀλλήλους ἀγαπᾶν· ὁ γὰρ ἀγαπῶν τὸν ἕτερον νόμον πεπλήρωκεν). And again, in Rom. 13:10 the apostle connects, like Jesus, the law, neighbour and love: “love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law” (ἡ ἀγάπη τῷ πλησίον κακὸν οὐκ ἐργάζεται· πλήρωμα οὖν νόμου ἡ ἀγάπη).17 The interconnectedness between the law and love, or more precisely the fulfillment of the law in love is the cornerstone for Paul’s ethics. Michael Wolters is correct when he suggests that “die Liebe ist bei Paulus die zentrale ethische Tugend für die Gestaltung des christlichen Lebens überhaupt” (for Paul, love is the central virtue for the formation of Christian life as such).18 Why is love the fulfillment of the law? There can only be one answer. Love is the existential mystery that builds up authentic life like no other virtue. For Paul, the power of love is unequalled in its potency to bring into focus the goodness and beauty of life. Paul’s hymn of praise for love in 1 Cor. 13:4–8 speaks for itself:

“Love (ἀγάπη) is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. love does not insist on its own way; love is not irritable; love keeps no record of wrongs; love does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” 16 

Cf. Ben-Chorin, Theologia Judaica, 19. James 2:8: “you do well if you really fulfill the royal law (νόμον τελεῖτε βασιλικὸν) according to the scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself (ἀγαπήσεις τὸν πλησίον σου ὡς σεαυτόν)’.” 18  Michael Wolter, “Die Liebe,” in Paulus Handbuch, 449–453, here 449. 17  Similarly,

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It we take seriously Paul’s high view of Christian love (ἀγάπη), we can say that from an existential perspective a life devoid of love is inauthentic. A person who does not give and not receive love will be pushed to the edge of emotional intelligence. This is of course not a uniquely Pauline insight, but a basic human experience, grounded as it is in a universal existential structure. Life without love is a sheer impossibility and always a perversion of existence. The obverse of the absence or scarcity of love is a generous life. If we only practiced the virtues of love as extolled by Paul in 1 Cor. 13, our own lives and those impacted by our love would get an immediate boost of authenticity, fulfillment and existential shalom. The path of love always leads to life. In this sense, the power of love is the greatest antidote to the power of sin and death! Ultimately, sin is non-being but love is the fulfillment of being. In the previous section we argued that there is no such thing as a moral perfectionism because of our ontological-existential structures that still hold us captive to the old self and its evil inclinations. An ethical absolute standard is also foiled by the very idea of love itself. As Tillich remarked: “the law of love is the ultimate law because it is the negation of law.”19 Why does love negate law when in the Pauline sense the law of Christ is the law of love? The answer is in Paul’s view of love in 1 Cor. 13. If it is the case, as the apostle argues, that love is patient, kind and bears all things, believes, hopes and endures all things, that it is not envious, boastful, arrogant, rude, selfish, irritable and keeps no record of wrongs, then it is clear that these things cannot be measured. There is no ethical yardstick or benchmark that can be applied in a consistent, equitable and universal manner. Love is as fluid as the uniqueness and individuality of every person. This is true for us today as it was true for Jesus and Paul. Jesus may exhort us to love our neighbour and Paul may define love as patient, kind and enduring, but both do thereby not stipulate the concreteness that love entails. The love of neighbour can mean different things in different contexts just as patience, kindness and loving endurance mean different things in different contexts. Because love is essentially free, it cannot manifest itself as a rigid law, supposedly applicable to all Christians of all times in all contexts. Such a love would lose its freedom and a love without freedom is, existentially speaking, a mere “noisy gong or a clanging cymbal” (1 Cor. 13:1). Even more, as Paul admits, even if “I have all faith so as to remove mountains but do not have love, I am nothing” (1 Cor. 13:2). 19 Tillich,

Systematic Theology, vol.  1, 152.

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So how is the love of Christ, the principle of love, possible in the daily life of the follower of Christ? The answer, as Wolter points out, is that for Paul love is paired with faith.20 On the one hand, Paul interpreted the death of Jesus itself as an act of altruistic love (Rom. 5:8; Gal. 2:20; 2 Cor. 5:14) and, on the other hand, he based his understanding of love as the highest virtue of human intimacy on Jesus’ example of self-giving. Just as Jesus did not spare his own life for the sake of all humanity (accepted in faith), in the same manner Christians should be exemplary in their relations with each other (practiced in love). Similarly, Tillich argues that while “faith is the state of being grasped by the Spiritual Presence, love is the state of being taken by the Spiritual Presence into the transcendent unity of the unambiguous life.”21 I would prefer simply to speak of the Spirit, or the presence of the Holy Spirit as the empowerment for a life of love. What Tillich calls the “unambiguous life” I prefer to call the authentic life, namely the existentially fulfilling life grounded in love. Nonetheless, Tillich has clearly articulated that love is embedded between faith and the Holy Spirit. Renewed by faith in the risen Christ, a life of love is possible because of and in the Holy Spirit, the presence of God in daily Dasein. The theological, ethical and existential sides of faith are delightfully expressed by Tillich: “Love includes the knowledge of the beloved, but it is not the knowledge of analysis and calculating manipulation; it is rather the participating knowledge which changes both the knower and the known in the very act of loving knowledge. Love, as faith, is a state of the whole person; all functions of the human mind are alive in every act of love.”22 Can we say more about love from an existential perspective? Is love a universal phenomenon, an exhilarating marvel and an invigorating mystery, a shared need and a complete desire – in other words, a human experience that is perhaps the most universal emotion implanted in human existence? For every person and every human relationship, a life without giving and receiving love is somehow incomplete. Can we go as far as enthroning love as an ontological category, a universal existential category? Heidegger does not list love as an Existenzial, but given the presence of love in every person’s life, it seems to me that the only reasonable conclusion of the ubiquity and power of love is that is has ontological roots. If meaning and Sorge are existential categories, then love even more so. 20 

Cf. Wolter, “Die Liebe,” 449–451. Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press 1963, vol.  3, 134. 22 Tillich, Systematic Theology, vol.  3, 137. 21 

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This is precisely the position of Paul Tillich. He makes the bold statement that “love is an ontological concept.”23 Tillich does not suggest that love is an Existenzial in the sense of Heidegger, but he does emphasize the ontological foundation of love as distinct from its emotional experience. Love’s “emotional element is a consequence of its ontological nature.”24 When we think of love, we usually imagine the side of love that Tillich calls the emotional element. But Tillich wants to clarify that this emotional side, namely the experience of love in our daily lives, is rooted in the very makeup of our humanity. Put differently, the experience of love’s psychological power is an existential category, while the roots of that experience in the first place is because of our ontological constitution.

8.4  The Other The apostle Paul employed the expression, “the other” long before modern discourse on “the other” was prominent in the academy, the church and some segments of society. Remarkably, in 1 Cor. 14:17 he comments: “you may give thanks well enough, but the other person is not built up” (ἀλλ’ ὁ ἕτερος οὐκ οἰκοδομεῖται). In a sense, the short phrase “the other person is not built up” is a significant and relevant precursor to our contemporary dialogue on “the other.” Paul not only perceptively characterises persons around him as ὁ ἕτερος, “the other,” but he includes in that very designation the crucial warning that the other person “is not built up.” Tellingly, Paul seems fully aware that “the other” can get lost, overlooked, marginalized vis-à-vis the mainstream group or persons. In several other passages, Paul also mentions the other. For instance, in Rom. 2:1 he clarifies: “therefore you are without excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others, for in passing judgment on another (ἐν ᾧ γὰρ κρίνεις τὸν ἕτερον) you condemn yourself (σεαυτὸν κατακρίνεις), because you, the judge, are doing the very same things.” This terse Pauline reference to the other is significant because it is a revealing illustration of the dynamic of otherness, in two decisive ways.25

23 Tillich,

Systematic Theology, vol.  1, 279. Systematic Theology, vol.  1, 279. 25  In the comments that follow I am taking the apostle Paul further into the study of alterity along the lines of my study “The Art of Tolerance: Insights from Bonhoeffer and Levinas,” in Mattias Grebe (ed), Polyphonie der Theologie. Verantwortung und Widerstand in Kirche und Politik. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 2019, 161–174. 24 Tillich,

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First, the very notion of “the other” is the result of differentiating or classifying one person from another person or group. Usually this is done by applying a distinguishing feature by the I which marks as different the You. Paul says here to the Romans “you judge” (κρίνεις). Even though the Greek verb κρίνω can mean “to judge, evaluate” in the neutral sense of trying to find out what is happening in a situation, the accusative direct object τὸν ἕτερον suggests that the observer has already drawn the conclusion that what is observed is precisely “the other,” the different person. By thus designating a person, the subject has created an object that is different from the subject. There is no identity between the subject and object. In other words, any “judging” that there is “the other” is in every case the objectification of a person that is unlike us.26 Even the naming of the object as “the other” is in fact nothing else but the objectification and instrumentalization of another person made in the image of God. Second, the one who objectifies the other is always thrown back to what Paul also articulates in Rom. 2:1: “you condemn yourself (σεαυτὸν κατα­ κρίνεις), because you, the judge, are doing the very same things.” Paul is thus suggesting that establishing the otherness of “the other” will always cast a light back on the subject. Here, Paul says to the subject “you condemn yourself” because you do exactly what you seem to find wrong with “the other.” The underlying tension and dynamic in any situation, where one person objectifies another person as “the other,” is that the subject is never independent of the object. As Bonhoeffer so exquisitely said, “the other can be experienced by the I only as You, but never directly as I, that is, in the sense of the I that has become I only through the claim of a You.”27 In other words, Bonhoeffer insists that the formation of the I, my own self, is always in relation to the You, namely the I of the other. His claim is seriously radical: I can only come to myself in view of the other. Put differently, there is no autonomous sphere of the I that is independent of the You 26 Hans-Georg Gadamer, “Die Universalität des hermeneutischen Problems,” in Wahrheit und Methode. Hermeneutik II. GW 2. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 2nd ed, 1993, 219–231, offers the following insight, 223: “Schon die Formulierung ‘Ich und Du’ be­ zeugt aber eine ungeheure Verfremdung. So etwas gibt es ja gar nicht. Es gibt weder ‘das’ Ich noch ‘das’ Du, es gibt ein Du-Sagen eines Ich und es gibt ein Ich-Sagen gegenüber einem Du” (but already the formulation ‘I and you’ testifies to a tremendous alienation. There is no such thing. There is neither ‘the’ I nor ‘the’ you, there is a ‘you-saying’ of an I and there is an ‘I-saying’ towards a you). 27  Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Sanctorum Communio: A Theological Study of the Sociology of the Church. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English, DBWE 1). Edited by Clifford J. Green. Translated by Reinhard Krauss and Nancy Lukens. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 1998, 51.

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and, therefore, there is no such thing as an absolute I. The You always impinges in some way on the I, or in Bonhoeffer’s words, “the You sets the limit for the subject.”28 When we look more closely at how Paul speaks of the other, 29 we see that he is in fact trying to stay away from objectifying the other while at the same time he is self-aware of the limit and the challenge the other does pose. For example, when he recounts in 1 Cor. 4:6: “I have applied all this to Apollos and myself for your benefit, brothers and sisters, so that you may learn through us what ‘Not beyond what is written’ means, so that none of you will be puffed up in favor of one against another” (ἵνα μὴ εἷς ὑπὲρ τοῦ ἑνὸς φυσιοῦσθε κατὰ τοῦ ἑτέρου), he attempts to exclude an arrogant attitude of the subject toward the object, namely “against the other” (κατὰ τοῦ ἑτέρου). For Paul, the anchor for his reminder to treat the other without being “puffed up” is the law of Christ, or the principle of love. This is evident in Rom. 13:8: “owe no one anything, except to love one another, for the one who loves another (τὸν ἕτερον) has fulfilled the law.” The literal translation of the second part of the verse, ὁ γὰρ ἀγαπῶν τὸν ἕτερον νόμον πεπλήρωκεν, is more accurately rendered as “the one who loves the other (person) has fulfilled the law.” At any rate, while love of the other is tied to the fulfillment of the law, namely the law of love in Christ (see above 8.3), love itself has the higher purpose of the unconditional acceptance of the other. Perhaps Paul was thinking along the lines of Gal. 3:28 (“there is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus”) when he penned 1 Cor. 10:24: “do not seek your own advantage but that of the other” (μηδεὶς τὸ ἑαυτοῦ ζητείτω ἀλλὰ τὸ τοῦ ἑτέρου). The “advantage,” or more generally the well-being of the other person, should be the end (τέλος) of Christian love. As soon as love is instrumentalized, perhaps in order to make converts for Christ, it objectifies “the other” and thereby betrays its unconditional character rooted in God’s impartial love for every person. The kind of love Paul envisions as the catalyst toward the other is that of unconditional embrace. But what does “unconditional” entail if not the complete absence of labels, stigma and any marker that allows for objectification? The connection between two people must be the unconditional embrace as human beings and not as human beings categorized by labels. Embrace is the event from person to person 28 

DBWE 1, 51. See the perceptive comments on the other in Paul by Douglas Harink, Paul among the Postliberals. Pauline Theology beyond Christendom and Modernity. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press 2003, 248–254. 29 

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and not from label to label. The benchmark of genuine ἀγάπη is the absence of objectifying labels. To meet the other person with non-objectifying love and apart from labels must be the foundation of Christian love, notwithstanding its enormous difficulty. On that note, Paul, even though he is fully conscious of the “advantage” of the other,” is also struggling in working out the ethical details of how the other should be treated. In 1 Cor. 6:1, for example, Paul knows that “the other” is not always an outsider to a group, but can be just as well an insider. He questions: “when any of you has a grievance against another (τολμᾷ τις ὑμῶν πρᾶγμα ἔχων πρὸς τὸν ἕτερον), do you dare to take it to court before the unrighteous, instead of taking it before the saints?” In this context, the apostle wants a legal dispute resolved within the Christian community, but he admits that one member has been stigmatized as “the other.” Paul takes a slightly less positive view of the other in 1 Cor. 10:29. He remarks: “I mean the other’s conscience, not your own (συνείδησιν δὲ λέγω οὐχὶ τὴν ἑαυτοῦ ἀλλὰ τὴν τοῦ ἑτέρου). For why should my freedom be subject to the judgment of someone else’s conscience (ἄλλης συνειδήσεως)?” The tension for Paul touches on the dynamic that is so brilliantly articulated by Bonhoeffer (“the You sets the limit for the subject”30), Levinas (the other becomes my “limit and menace”31) and Gadamer (one of the key aspects of philosophical hermeneutics is to understand the other), namely that the other becomes my limit and functions as the unavoidable counterpart to the formation of my own self. As a free person, Paul seems to question,32 why his freedom should be considerate of the conscience of “the other?” For Paul this is a rhetorical question, perhaps, because he has sided with personal freedom over the conscience of the other. But then when we read Romans 14, it is the case that Paul is very much concerned about the other, specifically the weaker members of the Roman congregation.33 What then should be the ethical guideline by which we approach the other? 30 

DBWE 1, 51. Elsewhere, DBWE 8, 45, Bonhoeffer declares: “nothing of what we despise in another is itself foreign to us.” 31  Emmanuel Levinas, Alterity and Transcendence. Translated by Michael B. Smith. New York: Columbia University Press 1999, 56. 32  See also Gal. 6:4: “all must test their own work; then that work, rather than their neighbor’s work (καὶ οὐκ εἰς τὸν ἕτερον), will become a cause for pride.” Here, too, Paul addresses the unavoidable dynamic between the I and “the other.” 33  Cf. Kathy Ehrensperger, “Levinas, the Jewish Philosopher Meets Paul, the Jewish Apostle: Reading Romans in the Face of the Other,” in David Odell-Scott (ed), Reading Romans with Contemporary Philosophers and Theologians. London: T & T Clark 2007, 115–154. In an insightful essay, Ehrensperger argues against a Paul who is portrayed as a champion of universalist soteriological ideas by drawing on Levinas’ notion of the priority of ethics in the face-encounter with the other. On the weak and the strong

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Like Bonhoeffer’s idea of self and community, so equally Levinas’ view of the other precludes taking the other captive with one’s own prejudices, assumptions and preferences. In a rather poetic passage Levinas elaborates his idea of the untouchableness of the other. “What we take as the secret of the other person in appresentation is precisely the flip side of a significance other than knowledge. It is the awakening to the other person in his/her identity, indiscernible for knowledge,34 a thought in which the proximity of the neighbor and the commerce with the other signifies, irreducible to experience, the approach of the first come.”35 Levinas emphasizes that the secret of alterity is not knowledge of the other. It is not an epistemological matter, as if the other is an object for academic discourse. Quite otherwise, we encounter the other only in “the awakening to the other,” in the “proximity of the neighbour.” In other words, the awakening to the other is an existential – by extension for Levinas also an ethical – and not an intellectual encounter. But how do we encounter the other in a concrete manner? When Levinas speaks of the proximity of the other36 he envisions a concrete person to person encounter, or more precisely, a face-to-face encounter. In an interpersonal encounter “the notion of the face imposes itself here. It is not a qualitative datum added empirically to a foregoing plurality of I’s or of psyches, or interiorities, like contents which can be, and are, added together into a totality.”37 “The face,” Levinas explicates, “is nudity and destitution of expression as such, that is extreme exposition, the defense-less itself.”38 The nudity of the face is the disclosedness of the other. There is no cover, no distortion, no deception. To encounter another person face to face, eye to eye, is unconditional proximity, unmediated and pure alterity.39 But “face-to-face is in Rom. 14, see now Filippo Alma, L’accueil de l’autre dans sa diversité. La stratégie de médiation de Paul à l’égard des faibles et des forts à Rome (Romains 14,1–15,13). WUNT 572. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2022. 34  Bonhoeffer similarly speaks of the other as being “the limit to epistemological knowledge” (DBWE 1, 51). 35  Emmanuel Levinas, Of God who comes to Mind, Translated by Bettina Bergo. Stanford: Stanford University Press 1998, 161–162; translation slightly altered. 36  Cf. Levinas, Alterity and Transcendence, 97–109, on the proximity of the other. 37 Levinas, Of God who comes to Mind, 160. On the centrality of the face in Levinas’ thought, see Bernhard Waldenfels, “Levinas and the Face of the Other,” in Simon Critchley and Robert Bernasconi (eds), The Cambridge Companion to Levinas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2002, 63–81. 38 Levinas, Of God who comes to Mind, 162. 39  In Gadamer’s later reflection on language, he notes that because of the limits of language, human beings always struggle to find the right word (das richtige Wort). But what is the right word? It is, Gadamer (“Grenzen der Sprache,” in GW 8, 361) claims, “das Wort, das den anderen erreicht (the word that reaches the other).” For a discussion

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a relation”40 and as such it is not neutral. Levinas claims that the “proximity of the other is the meaningfulness of the face.”41 The face and the meaning of the existence of this face is nothing else but the very personhood of the other that I must respect. And “yet this facing me [en face] of the face in its expression – in its mortality – summons me, asks for me, lays claim to me…”42 In other words, there is no neutral encounter of the nude face. Every face provokes a claim on me. Hence, tolerance is the recognition that the other person has a face. Even more, by forfeiting labels, tolerance is the unconditional embracing of the other as the human being beyond and outside of the claim of the I. Levinas’ understanding of philosophy not as “the love of wisdom” but as “the wisdom of love”43 is paralleled in another expression, namely that there is such a thing as what Levinas calls “a humanism of the other,” a phrase that even became the title of a treatise he wrote.44 Levinas also called thinking about the other “ethics as first philosophy.”45 And, according to Zimmermann, Levinas “proposes a philosophical version of Judaism as ‘ethics of the other,’ to oppose the dissolution of the subject and of meaning in postmodern thought.”46 In all of these designations we can see that for Levinas’ understanding of philosophy, ethical responsibility vis-à-vis “others” is the key to meaning. Now we can add that the reason he holds this position is because of his conviction that “ethical relation [is] prior to all ontology” which means for him that “the human subject is defined not primarily as a rational animal but as recipient of an ethical demand to care for another fellow human being.”47 It is amazing how closely Bonhoeffer aligns with Levinas on this point. He, too, believes that “the fundamental step” for sociality is the “social ontic-ethical basic-relations of persons”48 and that “the person exists

cf. Donatella Di Cesare, Gadamer. Ein philosophisches Porträt. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2009, 199–205. 40 Levinas, Alterity and Transcendence, 56. See also Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity. Translated by Alphonso Lingis. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press 1969, 194–204 on ethics and the face. 41 Levinas, Of God who comes to Mind, 162. 42 Levinas, Of God who comes to Mind, 160–161. 43 Jens Zimmermann, Incarnational Humanism. A Philosophy of Culture for the Church in the World. Downers Grove: IVP Academic 2012, 209–226. 44  Emmanuel Levinas, Humanism of the Other, 13. 45  Cf. Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 47. 46 Zimmermann, Incarnational Humanism, 209. 47 Zimmermann, Incarnational Humanism, 209–210. 48  DBWE 1, 50.

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always and only in ethical responsibility.”49 And, finally, “the I comes into being only in relation to the You; only in response to a demand does responsibility arise.”50 That said, both Levinas and Bonhoeffer take ethical responsibility as an a priori ontological category that is activated, so to speak, in response to the presence of the “other” as the “neighbour.” Paul is a less philosophically inclined thinker and subsumes one’s acceptance of and actions toward the other as deeply rooted in the love of the risen Messiah. But for the apostle, as for Bonhoeffer, Levinas and Gadamer, the other constitutes my limit whose face demands my love, as Paul articulated in 1 Cor. 13. Nothing less will do. Without the other, accepted and embraced in ἀγάπη, my own existence will be existentially deprived and inauthentic. Stepping into the footsteps of Jesus and Paul, we widen the circle of our embrace for the other. We must become open to new perspectives, as Bonhoeffer showed us, namely the perspective “from below,” perspectives of the other that include “the outcasts, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed and reviled,”51 and all those exposed to suffering. But, to repeat, we meet those others as equal human beings and not as those objectified by a marginalizing label.

8.5 Eros Eros – in a book on how to understand the apostle Paul! Really? Given that the broader topics focussed on in this book so far are on salvation, faith and ethics and how they impact existence, it may seem a farfetched and menacing idea to digress to a topic such as eros. To be sure, since there is hardly a more confusing, bewildering and mystifying subject than eros in any non-religious social context, it is surely not any easier to engage in a dialogue on eros in a book on Saint Paul! How in all the (biblical and theological) world does a conversation about eros belong to a discussion of Paul’s understanding of the life of faith? Astoundingly, much in every way! Before we can clarify what eros means and why it is important in the Christian life of faith, it is necessary to correct one pervasive misunderstanding: eros or the erotic realm is not identical with sex or the sexual, and even less with pornography. To employ the term “eros/erotic” is not merely 49 

DBWE 1, 48. DBWE 1, 54. 51  DBWE 8, 52. 50 

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a synonym for “sex” or sexual activity. Though there does exist a dynamic between the two spheres, the erotic and the sexual, they are distinct enough. Eros as love.  It is a relatively well-known fact among many Christians that the ancient Greeks had more than one term for love, namely στοργή, φιλία, ἀγάπη and ἔρως. It is not our task here to discuss any of these in greater detail, other than providing a brief definition of each and focusing on ἔρως in the remainder of this section. Somewhat simplified we may say: στοργή is respectful and decent behaviour towards all people; propriety. φιλία is purposeful, joyous and emphatic embrace of the neighbour; friendship. ἀγάπη is the unconditional acceptance of the other; selfless love of neighbour. ἔρως is the highest form of earthly delight, pleasure, fulfillment; (sexual) desire.

The English word “eros” and its semantic domain go back to the Greek word ἔρως. The Greek ἔρως, meaning “desire,” comes from ἔραμαι suggesting “to desire, to love.” Because eros is a designation for love, it is typically mentioned alongside the better-known Greek terms φιλία and ἀγάπη. The four terms for love are, however, not mere synonyms.52 We may conceive of them as a hierarchy. The bottom, στοργή, is the most common form of love and embraces the most people in our social environment. φιλία is more restricted to the people we choose to socialize with or who are in our social environment for reasons of work, living, family and leisure. Higher up on the hierarchy is ἀγάπη because unconditional love is more difficult to put into practice than either στοργή or φιλία. The tip of the hierarchy of love belongs to ἔρως. While we meet other people generally with an attitude of στοργή or φιλία and while we accept even those persons we do not like with ἀγάπη, we have a much smaller circle of people with whom we engage erotically. In fact, if at all, we can have only few friends who will be considered friends on the basis of ἔρως. The excellence of eros.  Paul speaks eloquently of love in 1 Cor. 13.53 The concluding statement of his discourse in verse 13 is that “now faith, hope, and love remain, these three, and the greatest of these is love” (νυνὶ δὲ μένει πίστις, ἐλπίς, ἀγάπη, τὰ τρία ταῦτα· μείζων δὲ τούτων ἡ ἀγάπη). In other words, Paul gives us a kind of ascending spiral as to the hierarchy and priority of these three fundamental spheres of life. Though we need to be 52  στοργή, φιλία and ἀγάπη are directed toward the other person; they are selfless in that they are giving rather than receiving love. ἔρως is directed towards oneself in that it both legitimates and seeks pleasure towards its own Dasein; it is self-directed and therefore to some degree selfish, but in a positive sense. 53  Paul neither used the terms φιλία nor ἔρως (no other New Testament writer employs the term either). Paul focuses on the term ἀγάπη and employs it 47 times (116 in NT).

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careful not to outplay one of these against the other two, it is significant that Paul asserts μείζων δὲ τούτων ἡ ἀγάπη. Is there a reason why Paul assigns priority to ἀγάπη over against faith and hope? The answer may rest in an existential interpretation of 1 Cor. 13:13. Of the three realms of life, faith is a general designation that encompasses all of the Christian life while hope is the most abstract and least defined sphere in that it always envisions the future. Love, however, is the most concrete realm and embraces all persons of faith in a daily manner. Put differently, love is the most existential aspect of a person’s daily following of “the law of the Messiah.” Every person is enmeshed in love, every day. This may easily be seen and accepted as far as φιλία and ἀγάπη are concerned, but far less so regarding ἔρως. How then can we show the significance eros? Eros is our primal energy for love, our unspoiled desire for the good, the beautiful and that which gives us pleasure. Conceivable, ἔρως was the love operative before the fall (cf. Gen. 2:25). It is a disposition of the mind, the soul and the body. But it is deeply hidden within our selves, carefully guarded with all our being so that no one finds out who we really are, unless we purposefully disclose our innermost thoughts to a few select friends. On purpose we keep others in oblivion, except those few whom we entrust these deepest thoughts and desires. As our most intimate core, eros is the principle of being, and in that it is diametrically opposed to death as the power of non-being. Herbert Marcuse, in his classic work Eros and Civilization, contends that “being is essentially the striving for pleasure.”54 The experience of pleasure is the opposite of that of pain and suffering. Said differently, the pleasure of eros is the counterpart to and opposite of the destructive forces of sin. Eros brings us as close as possible to our own self and to the self of the other and God. Eros is thus the most intimate way of being that unfolds within a spiritual atmosphere. Unlike C. S. Lewis, I do not think that ἀγάπη should be the controlling love of the other three. To be sure, it is the love that most resembles the “law of Christ” as the unconditional love of neighbour and even enemy, and in that sense is closest to virtuous “Christian” love. Nonetheless, to experience Dasein in a most authentic existential manner, a person needs all four loves. Even though, if God is love, then eros must belong to the love that God wills for us human beings. It may be that the erotic trajectory is from the biological, to the mental, to the psychological, to the cultural55 and finally to the spiritual

54  55 

Herbert Marcuse, Eros and Civilization. Boston: Beacon Press 1955, 125. Cf. Marcuse, Eros and Civilization, 212.

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sphere. Still, what eros is concretely in the life of a person is a mystery unique to that person. Our civilizations suffer from logos and not from eros. Is it not that a life without ἔρως will gravitate towards violence, chaos and θάνατος, but a life full of ἔρως will be drawn towards οὐρανός? Our penchant for industrial productivity (logos) with all its proclivities for efficiency, benchmarking, measuring and consuming has an alienating effect on our erotic sensibilities.56 Along Freudian lines, we may venture to insist that suppression of erotic energy will find its way into an aggression and violence against the other. Even more, I wonder whether all forms of social, political, racist, sexist and religious violence are the result of unsuccessful sublimation of erotic energies. Who knows, but could it be that there is perhaps no social recipe as disastrous as the combination of inhibited erotic vitality in the face of religious fundamentalism? In our existential interpretation of Paul, let us go beyond the apostle in a substantial manner. In agreement with Paul, we must insist that love is the highest virtue in our relationship with God, ourselves and “the other.” But can we go beyond the Pauline emphasis on ἀγάπη? It is my thesis that spiritual formation must include the erotic. If our spiritual life is devoid of a basic understanding of erotic love, then our spiritual life as a whole may potentially suffer from a one-sidedness leaning toward the underside of faith. That underside is the constant pressure of ἀγάπη to be there for others, almost at all costs and at all times. To be sure, selflessness belongs to the catalogue of Christian virtues, but no one person can only and always be loving others. The fullness of love lies in its reciprocity. For this very reason, a non-erotic spirituality is always in danger of remaining fragmentary. It is fragmentary because ἀγάπη without ἔρως separates what is ontologically, and therefore existentially, part of the essence of every human being. Eros is the mysterious side of love that calls each self into the deepest possibilities of human fulfillment. Where intimate desires, thoughts and longings are met, the self comes to itself in unprecedented ways. Having said this, we must add that erotic intelligence must be subsumed into our spiritual intelligence. Because eros is more self-referential than philia and agape, it wants to control the other and attempts to objectify the other. Even the deepest of loves can be coercive in its intention and aim. For this reason, spiritual ἔρως knows not only its beauty, goodness and possibilities, but also its boundaries. In short, eros for the sake of eros alone may degrade this potentially most fulfilling love to an instrument of existential 56 Marcuse,

Eros and Civilization, 186.

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alienation from self, others and God. To safeguard the erotic as an integral life of our imagination and as a part of our spiritual self, the erotic must be under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. To be in a genuine erotic relationship, one must be empty of anger, suspicion, hate, revenge and all other emotions of resentment. Although eros seeks to have its own independent existence, it must always be subservient to the leading of the Spirit. Like all facets of the life of faith, eros too is not the absolute but only a relative part of the whole. In the context of the metaphor of building our house, the place of ἔρως in the house may be seen as the finer details of design, both interior and exterior. In the end, it is eros that makes a house visually unique, aesthetically exclusive and humanly inviting. The average house has typical standard features that make it one among many with hardly any distinguishing characteristics. This is not necessarily bad; it merely points to the fact that the common denominator for contemporary house design is geared toward the mass market and therefore aims at a lower cost. In terms of love, every house needs the basic courtesy of love and respect, as expressed in φιλία and ἀγάπη. This should be so in every house. But where we feel most welcomed, inspired, awed and where our soul is invigorated and broadened is in a house where genuine eros dwells naturally. Artistic details in design and decor resemble the erotic depth of genuine love. It is not everybody’s thing, for sure, but the finesse of beauty lifts the soul of the beholder. For a home without love is just a house.

8.6  In the World How can we now connect the various ethical strands of Pauline thought into an existential tapestry that enables us to live in our world as those who profess the Messiah and endeavour to follow him? What is the reality of our world? We have repeatedly and in detail argued that our reality embraces the two sides of old nature and new creation, the ontological bifurcation of sin and death, on the one hand, and the redemption as a new being, on the other hand. So far, our discussion of the ontological status of our existence as old and new creation has evaded the question of whether we therefore live in a dualism, in a split reality, stuck in a fight between good and evil forces, like early Gnostic conceptions. The answer is a definite “no.” Our understanding of Paul’s view of sin and death vis-à-vis the abolition of death in the resurrection of the Messiah does not lead to the conclusion

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that therefore human beings live in a split world, a divided reality or have a divided being. The choice is not an either-or but an equally-both. An apt comment on the contemporary reality of the Christian person is given by Bonhoeffer.57 He rejected, rightfully in my view, the Lutheran Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms, according to which one realm is sacred and the other profane. Instead, he argued that all reality is a unity and encompasses every aspect of life – good and evil. In his own words: “There are not two realities, but only one reality, and that is God’s reality revealed in Christ in the reality of the world … The world has no reality of its own independent of God’s revelation in Christ.”58 The one reality of our world, including the reality of human existence, is ensconced in the dynamic (not contradiction) of good and evil. As early as in his doctoral dissertation Sanctorum Communio, the 21-year old Bonhoeffer argued that “one can never arrive at the reality of the other by means of epistemology and metaphysics. Reality is simply not deducible, but given – to be acknowledged or rejected. It can never be explained theoretically; likewise it is only given for the whole person as an ethical being.”59 Even though Bonhoeffer speaks here of the reality of the human being, his conception of reality as “given” suggests that he assigned reality an overarching basic ontological structure 60 that defies both construction and deconstruction. In this sense he affirms what we found to be the case in the apostle Paul. In sum, then, the one reality of our world is the given reality of our lives and the entire planet, the ontological structure for our existence, continuously marred as it is by the destructive power of sin and calculated evil amid the dawning of the new creation. The immediate context for Bonhoeffer were the unspeakable evils of the Nazi Regime; our existential dynamic of good and evil spans the macro-global crisis of war, famine, corruption, poverty, racism and so on and the daily micro-experiential challenges or our mental, physical and spiritual environment. 57  In what follows I am drawing on my book Understanding Bonhoeffer. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2017, 12–18. 58 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English 6). Edited by Clifford J. Green. Translated by Reinhard Krauss, Charles C. West and Douglas W. Stoff. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2005, 58. 59  DBWE 1, 53 note 68; Cf. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Act and Being: Transcendental Philosophy and Ontology in Systematic Theology (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English 2). Translated by H. Martin Rumscheidt, edited by Wayne W. Floyd. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 1996, 66. 60  Jürgen Moltmann, Herrschaft Christi und soziale Wirklichkeit nach Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Munich: Chr. Kaiser 1959, 5, speaks correctly of a “theological ontology” in Bonhoeffer’s early writings.

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What Bonhoeffer wants to emphasize in the midst of an evil regime – and what we found by extension to be the existential context in Paul’s thought – is the fact that being fully embraced by God’s salvific act in the risen Christ while continuing in the fallen world is no contradiction in terms and no cheapening of grace.61 Bonhoeffer expresses it positively in this manner: “As reality is one in Christ, so the person who belongs to this Christ-reality is also a whole. Worldliness does not separate one from Christ, and being Christian does not separate one from the world. Belonging completely to Christ, one stands at the same time completely in the world.”62 What Bonhoeffer expresses so eloquently, namely that as human beings belonging to the Messiah we are “a whole” and stand “completely in the world” is an echo of the biblical teaching, for example in John 3:16, that God loves the sinful world (τὸν κόσμον), and Paul in 2 Cor. 5:19, that God accomplished “the reconciliation of the world” (θεὸς ἦν ἐν Χριστῷ κόσμον καταλλάσσων ἑαυτῷ) (cf. Rom. 11:15). When Bonhoeffer speaks of the wholeness of a person and Paul insists that God reconciled the world to himself, neither one of them intends to claim that either we as human beings are made complete in the sense of being perfect or that the world as a whole is perfect. Said differently, neither people nor the world is beyond the reach of the power of sin. We simply live in the world. Our wholeness consists in good and evil inclinations with the latter having the upper hand under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. As Kierkegaard has impressed on us so profoundly, we live in this our world under the lordship of the “contemporary Christ” (see chapter 7.6). We can only live as contemporary Christians and not historical museums.

61  Elsewhere Bonhoeffer puts it this way: “Lord God, look down upon your world. It is a terrible torment. Hunger and thirst, no home, no work, tears and despair; God, are these the children of your compassion? Is this the world you created? We are soon at our end. We no longer believe, and we no longer hope. But now come, O God, and end all this misery, all this suffering, and if it is your gracious will that we fall even deeper into the water, do not conceal your promise from us that you will create a new heaven and a new earth, that you have invited the poor and the miserable, the troubled and the suffering into your kingdom. Today we would still speak about this promise. God, make us joyous again. Amen” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Barcelona, Berlin, New York 1928–1931 (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English 10). Translated by Douglas W. Stott, edited by Clifford J. Green. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2008, 536; translation slightly altered). 62 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English 6). Edited by Clifford J. Green. Translated by Reinhard Krauss, Charles C. West and Douglas W. Stoff. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2005, 62.

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How, then, do we live as those who have been freed from the power of sin and death? Negatively speaking, there is one issue which paralyzes many Christians. It is the question of guilt. Above in chapter 5.7 we briefly noted how Paul himself does not address the question of guilt. To repeat, E. P. Sanders has perceptively observed that in Paul we find a “lack of terminology for guilt.” For Sanders “this reinforces the point that Paul did not characteristically think in terms of sin as transgression which incurs guilt.”63 In sum, then, Paul “does not deal with sin as guilt.”64 This is a perplexing thing. I have argued that, going beyond Paul, it is indeed highly problematic to declare human beings guilty before God (see above 4.4 and 5.7) – that is to say, condemned to eternal punishment – by virtue of our being human. Suffice to point out once more: the fact of our ontological-existential structures in the grip of sin unto death has nothing to do with us committing an act of sin and therefore being found guilty and worthy of condemnation. This is of course a painstaking theological issue, though we need not discuss if further. Future Pauline research will have to look at this perplexity anew. Very briefly, there is a psychological side to guilt, and this is what concerns us now. Why do many Christians feel guilty? Guilty about what? Typically, about being pleasing to God and living a Christian life, obeying the ethical standards of a given Christian community. Fair enough. The implicit assumptions are that somehow it is possible to displease God, perhaps forfeit salvation, betray our faith by not being literal followers of Christ or the Bible, that we are bad examples to the world, or that the world itself is a bad thing and we must shun it. Again, fair enough. The issue is that such views can wreck even the best of a life. A Christian woman or man driven by guilt feelings of not measuring up to Christian standards or fear of the world will be in a most contradictory position to life live fully, that is to say, existentially in an authentic manner. This is not a peripheral issue, but one that leaves deep-seated existential scars in the lives of many Christians. The issue of guilt is a serious theological, ethical and therefore existential conundrum for many Christians in this our world. But the issue is predominantly hermeneutical. Guilt is often predicated on the false belief that the Bible requires a literal hermeneutic and a corresponding literal stance on theological and ethical issues. For example, because Paul condemns homosexuality in Rom. 1, therefore it follows for 63 

E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism. A Comparison of Patterns of Religion. Philadelphia: Fortress Press 1977, 503. 64 Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 500.

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those Christians who espouse a literal reading of Paul, that condemning homosexuality per se and shunning people who are homosexual is the correct and consequent step to take. If they would not do this, they feel, they would compromise the Bible, deny their faith and become guilty before God. But is judgement and condemnation the way those who claim to be set free by God (cf. Rom. 5:1) should live in our contemporary world? Surely not! Positively speaking, as I have set out above in sections 8.3 to 8.5, the way of Christ is one of love and embrace of the other. If the apostle Paul is himself so hesitant to pronounce people guilty, why do we often have such a low view of the grace and compassion of God? If God found a way to abolish the power of sin and death,65 surely, he can reconcile sinners to himself without the unsolicited help of his followers who falsely imagine assisting God by dispensing judgement on others and attributing guilt on their neighbours! It we err, it must be on the side of generosity and not condemnation. Our task as Christians is not to judge the other, but to built up and to radiate hope for this world. As one who lived in the midst of the Nazis’ “contempt for humanity” and hatred for the other, Bonhoeffer battled both the ideologues and even his own church. In a moving letter he wrote to the fellow conspirators, he says:

“There are people who think it frivolous and Christians who think it impious to hope for a better future on earth and to prepare for it. They believe in chaos, disorder, and catastrophe, perceiving it in what is happening now. They withdraw in resignation or pious flight from the world, from the responsibility for ongoing life, for building anew, for coming generations. It may be that the day of judgement will dawn tomorrow; only then and no earlier will we readily lay down our work for a better future.”66

65  Cf. G. F. W. Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, vol.  3. Translated by E. B. Spears and J. Burdon Sanderson. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1968, 92: “with the death of Christ we have finally to emphasise the moment according to which it is God who has killed death, since He comes out of the state of death.” 66  DBWE 8, 51.

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How then do Christians live in the world? In faith, they embrace the salvific deliverance from sin and death in the resurrected Messiah as their existential motivation and joy to bring love, peace and hope to a world that nearly always sits on the brink of destruction. In the language of Paul, looking through his apostolic lens, he says in 1 Cor. 9:22: “I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some.” More modestly, we might echo this Pauline sentiment by aspiring to become many things to many people – authentically and genuinely – so that some might experience a more fulfilling life.

8.7  The World to Come Paul has a very clear view on what happens when “the world to come” arrives. In the earliest of his letters, perhaps the earliest Christian document as such, Paul already asserts in 1 Thess. 1:10 that we await “Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.” Giving more precision to this general apocalyptic statement, he further specifies in 2 Cor. 5:10 that “all of us must appear before the judgment seat of Christ (ἔμπροσθεν τοῦ βήματος τοῦ Χριστοῦ), so that each may receive due recompense (κομίσηται) for actions done in the body, whether good or evil.” For Paul, his apocalyptic worldview included the parousia of the Messiah (cf. 1 Thess. 4:13–18) tied to the judgement of “all,” presumably Jews and Gentiles. 67 In spite of God’s salvific rescue from sin and death in the resurrected Messiah, universal judgement is still a vital part of Paul’s theological horizon. Nonetheless, the questions of God’s eternal punishment for those without faith in the Messiah and the existence of an eternal hell analogous to heaven are theologically and hermeneutically speculative themes that pose intellectual problems. For example, the eternity of hell implicates the eternity of evil as having a continued existence. But this is problematic in that the fundamental nature of the resurrection is precisely the total abolition of death, the once and definitive termination of sin, death and all evil. 68 If the resurrection of 67  For

a succinct discussion of judgement and grace in Paul, see Jörg Frey, “Gericht und Gnade,” in Paulus Handbuch, 471–479. 68  Cf. Michael Beintker, “Gottes Urteil über unser Leben. Das jüngste Gericht als Stunde der Wahrheit,” in ZThK 110 (2013), 219–233. Beintker notes, interpreting Rev. 21:4–5, that there is a total discontinuity between this life and the life to come. He writes, 225, that “das Reich Gottes ist das Reich der Liebe. Im Reich der Liebe ist kein Platz für die Sünde und ihre geschichtsträchtigen Wirkungen, kein Platz für Machtrausch und Todeswürdigkeit, Selbstbehauptung und Unterdrückung, Elend und Lieblosigkeit,

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the Messiah was absolute in its victory over death and evil, how then can a residue of evil continue to exist alongside heaven in the form of hell? If life is the absolute norm in the new creation of God, how can residual evil continue to exert suffering? If God’s invincible reign is where goodness is the new normal, it is difficult to conceive of an ongoing struggle between good and evil, without forfeiting the omnipotence of God or surrendering to a form of cosmic dualism. 69 Be that as it may, what we must maintain is that the world to come has as its foundation God’s justice. Salvation, as we argued in chapter 5, is God’s just compassion and embrace of the fallen world by defeating the power of sin and death. The total abolition of evil entails correspondingly the total embrace of life. Only here, in the fulfillment of a new creation, is life existentially perfected. There exists no sin, evil and death. The justice of God, however, is the result of the unconditional love that God has for all humanity. As we discussed in chapter 5.4, the final cause of divine salvation is the love of God. Bonhoeffer says poetically, what Paul has been arguing theologically in all his letters. “Death is strong over the world, but love is strong for eternity. Where there is love, there is eternity, and there is no more death. Where human hearts have met in the most profound, pure, sacred love, not even a thousand deaths have been able to separate souls from one another; there life is lived for eternity.70

Bonhoeffer’s words are matched by Paul himself. At the end of Romans 8, after he briefly discusses the torment and suffering of creation itself, the apostle reflects on the love of God. In 8:35 he questions: “who will separate us from the love of Christ?” and he lists a few things that we as human beings would typically think of: “affliction or distress or persecution or Hass und Ich-Besessenheit. Der Mensch soll das Böse nicht mehr kennen” (the kingdom of God is the kingdom of love. In the kingdom of love, there is no place for sin and its historical effects, no place for intoxication with power and worthiness of death, self-assertion and oppression, misery and lovelessness, hatred and ego-obsession. Human beings shall know evil no more). 69  G. F. W. Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, 1, 93, argues that when God created the world – and we may add created the new world – “there does not come into existence something evil, Another, which is self-sustained, and independent.” 70  DBWE 10, 538.

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famine or nakedness or peril or sword?” But he does not waiver in his answer. He is deeply convinced: “No, in all these things we are more than victorious through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:37–39).

Conclusion

Chapter 9

Summary and Inferences Sein, das verstanden werden kann, ist Sprache.1 Verstehen ist wie atmen. 2

We have now arrived at the point in our reflection where it seems prudent to summarize the salient features of our understanding of the apostle Paul. Specifically, what are the quintessential steps to understand Paul from the ontological-existential perspective? And why is it important to approach Paul from this point of view? By way of conclusion, I am explicating these points to remind the reader how the various ideas presented in this monograph cohere. The following is a summary and a look at some inferences of this study. In the end, that is the question, how does the apostle Paul’s life and teaching impact our contemporary existence.

9.1 Ontology Perhaps it may seem like a strange starting point or even a paradox, but the beginning of understanding Paul does not begin with Paul as a person – or his letters – but with our life. In principle, the same is true for understanding any other ancient figure, and any other contemporary person for that matter. The reason is that I can only start thinking about someone else by virtue of my own mind. This means that, by default, I can only start from myself, from what I am; it cannot be any other way. Because of my own existence – because I am a living being that thinks, feels and enters into social relations – I am tied to a process of understanding that must begin 1  Hans-Georg Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode. Grundzüge einer philosophischen Hermeneutik. Hermeneutik I. GW1. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 5th ed. 1986, 478; original emphasis. 2  Donatella Di Cesare, Gadamer. Ein philosophisches Porträt. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2009, 47; original emphasis.

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with my mind. In Cartesian philosophy, this is the recognition of the cogito. This is to say that I am thinking about Paul, but I does the thinking and not Paul telling me what he thinks. This excludes the converse, namely that there already exists a (fixed) understanding of Paul that merely requires my acknowledgement and signature. Another way of expressing the priority of life as a starting point is the recognition that every person’s life is tied to structures within which life takes shape and discovers its meaning. It is the priority of the sum over the cogito. In philosophical language, every person is tied to ontological pathways that constitute the boundaries of life. Who we are at the level of being is not our choice, but a given reality. There are structures that we all share (finiteness, death, Sorge, Verfallenheit, meaning, understanding) as a common specie of human beings, but still there are variations of how we as individual persons experience these in our concrete lives. The first are the universal ontological structures, also referred to as existential structures, existentials or Existenzalien. The second ones are the structures unique to every person, which Heidegger has called the existentiell-ontic encounters, unique to each human being. The key point of these ideas is that as interpreters of the life and letters of Paul, we are put on a certain path of understanding that we did not choose. Again, this path starts within ourselves, with our mind, with our ontological ability to think about Paul. In the most succinct way, the starting point for our quest to understand Paul is our ontology, our existence, our particular Dasein – simply our life. Our life is the gateway to understanding Paul. Life is the given and I must start with it. The charge, also leveled against Bultmann, that this kind of ontological thinking resembles a reductionist anthropocentric approach to Paul (apparently over against a theocentric or logocentric approach) is simply false. It is not false because Bultmann or I say so, but because it goes against the phenomenology of life itself; in other words, because of ontology, each interpreter is already tied to the starting point of one’s thinking. Our existential initiative to think about Paul is the given, but does not contain the substance of what we should think. In chapter 1, I argued that no direct and unmediated relation with Paul is possible except for our shared ontology of being human and sharing Dasein in analogous structures. At this stage in our venture to understand Paul, ideally, his thinking poses for us an open-ended encounter. The outcome of who Paul is, what he teaches, how this may be important, and whether we allow ourselves to be existentially transformed are not yet determined.

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9.2 Understanding If indeed the starting point for understanding Paul are the ontological-existential structures of our lives, how then does understanding come about? And what exactly qualifies as understanding? The short answer is a circular one: just as we enter the hermeneutical circle from the point of our life, so equally will we understand our life as we traverse the circle. Understanding, then, is making intelligible life through life. Our Pauline understanding thus stands between – in Gadamer’s language, it “lingers” on for some time – an earlier and a later point in our life. Ultimately, when we understand Paul, we actually understand ourselves more than the historical figure Saul of Tarsus. From a hermeneutical angle, it is thus clear that the issue Paul encountered was one of enormous religious, intellectual and ethical complexity. He moved in both directions on the hermeneutical circle and was forced to melt his past with his new horizons. His inherited understanding of all things Jewish was literally “re-cycled” on the wheel of hermeneutics into a set of convictions that guided his letters, albeit always in the context of his ἐκκλησίαι. In chapter 1, I have repeatedly emphasized that understanding Paul is in the strictest sense not a matter of academic acumen, not a question of a mere diligent reading of the Pauline letters, not a sophisticated arrangement of Pauline themes, not a speculation of what Paul “really meant,” not a mastery of exegetical tools, not a display of imaginative metanarratives. To be fair, these construals have their own legitimate claims, but the sum of them all does not amount to an understanding of the thinking of the apostle. Understanding is not explaining, but something else entirely. In her comments on the work of Gadamer, Di Cesare remarks: “das Verstehen ist kein Begreifen, Beherrschen oder Kontrollieren. Verstehen ist wie atmen” (understanding is not grasping, mastering or controlling. Understanding is like breathing).3 Another way of saying this is that “nicht das Erkennen, sondern das Verstehen ist in der hermeneutischen Wahrheit im Spiel” (not cognition but understanding is at play in hermeneutic truth).4 The key insight to understanding thus culminates in the recognition “es handelt sich daher nicht um ein Wissen, sondern um ein Sein” (it is therefore not a matter of knowing, but of being).5 If understanding is like breathing, then we hardly recognize that we are doing it incessantly. Breathing is part of our 3 

Di Cesare, Gadamer. Ein philosophisches Porträt, 47; original emphasis. Di Cesare, Gadamer. Ein philosophisches Porträt, 46. 5  Di Cesare, Gadamer. Ein philosophisches Porträt, 47. 4 

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being, it is the most natural mode of physical being. Gadamer suggests that the same can become true of understanding: we let it grip our entire personhood to such an extent that is has become a natural part of us. The feature that makes understanding real understanding is its mode of being. Only when our engagement with Paul grips us in the core of our being – and not merely on the intellectual level – can we claim to understand Paul. Breathing understanding, then, is in the event of truth’s appearing on the level of existence. The hermeneutic of understanding does not – indeed cannot – construct or deconstruct the appearing of truth nor can such a hermeneutic determine the substance and content of the appearing truth. In the context of Paul, the handmaid of hermeneutics is the Holy Spirit whose indwelling is the bridge between intellectual understanding and existential grip. In Johannine language, ὅταν δὲ ἔλθῃ ἐκεῖνος, τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς ἀληθείας, ὁδηγήσει ὑμᾶς ἐν τῇ ἀληθείᾳ πάσῃ (John 16:13, cf. 4:23–24, 14:17; 1 John 5:6). The reference to the Holy Spirit places a caveat on the process of understanding. There is a discrepancy, indeed a discontinuity, between theological and philosophical understanding. For Paul, the guarantor of turning knowledge into understanding, of transforming insight into existential experience is the Holy Spirit. More precisely, it is the mysterious and sovereign work of God as the Spirit (cf. Rom. 5:5, 9:1, 15:13–16; 1 Cor. 12:3, 1 Thess. 1:5, 4:8). Just as Paul spoke of the indwelling of sin, so also, he speaks of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:9, 11). This is different from philosophical hermeneutics. As Gadamer has pointed out, there is no guarantee that dialogue and openness toward the other will end up with understanding. Existentially speaking, there can also be mis-understanding or non-understanding. 6 Theologically speaking, it is not the case that the Holy Spirit universally opens a person to have existential faith in God and his resurrected Son. Said otherwise, understanding – including that of Paul – is not an automatic event.

6 Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode, 180–181, follows Schleiermacher in allowing the hermeneutic circle to be impeded by Verständnisschwierigkeit (difficulty in understanding) and Missverständnis (misunderstanding). He further clarifies his position, going beyond Schleiermacher, in Hans-Georg Gadamer, “Die Universalität des hermeneutischen Problems,” in Wahrheit und Methode. Hermeneutik II. GW 2. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 2nd ed, 1993, 219–231, here 223.

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9.3 Correlation I want to be clear at this point: it may seem redundant to ask for a correspondence between plight and solution in Pauline studies. On the surface, it may appear that this is what all scholarly engagements about Paul do anyway? I do not think so. The solution is the easy part and may be abbreviated as follows: Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah of God, who died and was risen, and who is the foundation for eternal life, for both Jews and Gentiles. But what is the issue that required that kind of solution – namely the death and reversing-the-death of a divine-human being? Given the repugnant and violent nature of the solution, we must ask what is the element of correspondence between Jesus as solution and the plight? If anything, in my reading of secondary literature on Paul, I find many unwarranted assumptions on what the plight or issue in Paul may be. There are all kinds of generalities, such as that Jesus had to become the fulfillment of the covenant, that he had to enable Gentiles to become part of the family of God, that he had to die for our sins, that he had to fulfill all divine promises. To be fair, these things do matter and are true and relevant to a certain extent. But do they really pinpoint the actual predicament of human existence and the cosmos as a whole? Not really; they point to secondary spheres by downplaying the primary issue. When we speak of the necessity of correlation in understanding Pauline thought, we have in mind two related ideas. First, there must be a basic correspondence between what Paul teaches and our own life experiences. If Paul’s letters contain nothing but for our lives marginal or irrelevant information, then his teachings will dry up in the sand, sooner or later. If we start our journey to understand Paul with accepting our ontology of existence and thinking, and if we are open-minded enough to be gripped and transformed by understanding our life by understanding Paul, then we must first be mindful of the fundamental correspondence between life and understanding. Put differently, the path to understanding requires a correlation between life and understanding. More concretely, as we discussed in chapter 5.1, the correlation must appear, on the one hand, in life itself (our lives and Paul’s life) and, on the other hand, the adequate response to the appearing of life, to the phenomenology of our being. This first correlation is thus simply the unbound acknowledgment that at bottom the kind of human existence that Paul lived is identical to the mode of our contemporary existence. The assumption is that the basic mode of being human has not changed from Paul to us; we share in the same structures, we have the same ontology and therefore the same exis-

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tential structures. Again, this is not to say that we are identical as human beings, it is only to emphasize that the structural framework for being human is identical (ontological-existential universals), but that the specific experiences in each human being are individual and unique (existentiell-ontic particularities). I am thus arguing that there is an ontological continuity between Paul and us that creates the bridge between Paul’s life and our life – before we even read the fist page of his letters. In other words, Paul’s life is so passionately bound up with what he thought and wrote because he shared the ontological structures of being. Like us, he strove after a life of purpose and meaning. Second, and related to the first, the key ideas that Paul addresses in his letter, the plight of his discourse, must correlate to the solution that he offers in order to be coherent, convincing and able to invoke faith. That plight is the power of sin and death.

9.4 Plight We just remarked that Paul’s ontological-existential structures are underlying his life, his mode of being human. Because some of these structures appear (hence phenomenology) in the expression of his being they have become visible for us in his letters, most of all in Romans 5–7. From these three chapters, when we speak of the “plight” in Paul, we must at once recognize that the plight is not Paul’s plight. It is not his general reflections on life or his thinking about what the world needs or his desire to make Judaism attractive to Gentiles that led him to articulate his theology on a scale of plight and solution. Notwithstanding Nietzsche’s cynicism, sin is not Paul’s invention7 and neither is it a general religious invention to control the masses. As we discussed extensively in chapter 3, precisely because the plight is ontological-existential, it was “given” to Paul. He encountered sin by virtue of being human, by the simple fact that he lived in the cosmos and observed everything around him. By the same token, the plight of life is handed to us in the same way as it was given to 7  Nietzsche rages: “It was Christianity which first painted the Devil on the world’s wall; it was Christianity which first brought sin into the world” (Human all too Human, II.2:78) and Paul “invented the repellent flaunting of sin, it introduced into the world sinfulness one has lyingly made up” (Daybreak, §  29). Cf. Peter Frick. “Nietzsche. The Archetype of Pauline Deconstruction,” in Paul in the Grip of the Philosophers. The Apostle and Contemporary Continental Philosophy. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2013, 15–37.

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Paul. This is our most immediate connection – that we are equal with Paul regarding our ontology and phenomenology, concretely that we too are encumbered by the forces of sin, evil and death. For the last time, let me repeat that the ontology of sin is the key issue, the plight against which Paul articulated his theological discourse. He himself keenly observed the finiteness of human existence, the destructive tendency of evil and the temporal finality brought about by death. These existential parameters have not changed since the time of Paul. To this day, every human being is still enslaved by sin. The universality of sin signifies the underlying mode of human existence in this world. Any attempt, no matter in how sophisticated a guise, to reduce and detract from the ontological nature of sin is a futile battle. No exegesis, theology, philosophy, psychology or ethics can overcome the ontological foundation of our mode of being human. The consequences of the phenomenology of sin are indeed profound. First, the ontological priority of sin vis-à-vis sins puts our committing of sins in its proper perspective. Because we are “enslaved to sin,” as Paul says in Rom. 7, we therefore commit acts of sin. This sequence is implied in the ontology of being a sinner. The sequence cannot be reversed. It cannot be the case that because we have committed an act of sin, therefore God retrospectively judges us as sinners. Any attempt to explain sin in a Pelagian fashion is proven false by our ontology. The act of committing a sin always follows the fact of being a sinner. Second, “being a sinner” is foremost an ontological statement and not a psychological or ethical one. This is crucial. To be a sinner has nothing to do with being a bad person. Sin is not an ethical stain or a psychological shortcoming or an emotional, intellectual deficiency. Sin makes no pronouncement regarding the quality of our being human, because we are bad people. Seen in this light, Jesus did not have to die for us because we are bad people (see our discussion of the atonement in chapter 4), but because we are separated from God as the source of life.

9.5 Solution If, as we maintain, the plight in Paul is primarily the ontology of the enslaving power of sin, then the question is how this plight can be resolved. What is the categorical correspondence between the plight thus defined and the life of Jesus the Christ? As I have argued all along, the correlation with the plight of sin rests in the distinction between the means of salvation (chapter 5) and the mode of salvation (chapter 6).

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This distinction is a subtle but decisive one. Paul himself did not make that distinction, but it is implicit in how he explores the theme of salvation in his letters. To provide but a small sampling, Paul is at ease to summarize his view of salvation in statements such as “since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God” (Rom. 5:1) or “so that, just as sin reigned in death, so grace might also reign through justification leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 5:21). In a different tone Paul also says that we are saved ἐκ πίστεως (Rom. 1:17, 5:1), διὰ πίστεως (Rom. 3:21, 25, 31) εἰς πίστιν (Rom. 1:17), πίστει (Rom. 3:28). In chapter 5, I argued that the polyvalence of Pauline soteriological language and conceptualization can be greatly clarified by means of understanding the cause of salvation as the primary power of God’s agency in the world and the human response to that divine act; the first refers to the means, the second to the mode of salvation. That we can indeed clarify the means of salvation in much greater clarity then has hitherto been done in Pauline scholarship is due to the example of Philo of Alexandria. As a contemporary of Philo, Paul implicitly applied the Aristotelian distinction of the four causes (formal, material, efficient and final); together these four distinct causes amount to one complex cause, which we called the means. While Philo employs this scheme for making intelligent the creation of the world, we can carefully make use of it for the explanation of Pauline soteriology. The gist of the means is that it is exclusively the work of God in his son Jesus Christ. Distinct from the divine act of salvation is the manner in which human beings are drawn into this ontological event. It can only happen in the mode of faith. The means of salvation is outside of human capacity – this is why Paul signifies salvation as an act of divine grace – while the response is the human response, precisely in the mode of faith.

9.6 Existence What is the content and significance of faith in God and Jesus Christ? The most revolutionary and inexplicable aspect of God’s salvific act is that with the resurrection of Jesus, a new ontology and lordship began (see chapter 7.1). But as Tillich once pointed out, ontology by itself is not a saving ontology; it is not soteriology. The new element of post-resurrection ontology is the defeat of the power of sin and the abolition of death and, therefore, the hope in a new creation in the world to come.

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The key Pauline verses to express this new ontological reality is 2 Cor. 5:17–18: “so if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; look, new things have come into being! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ.” The phrase “all this is from God” is a shorthand reference to the means of salvation. But at this point, the new creation is merely proleptic. While potentially already inaugurated in the resurrection, that is to say in the defeat of sin and death, in actuality the life of faith is still oscillating between the nasty remnants of the power of sin and the liberating fresh air of the life of faith, hope and love in the Holy Spirit. Though the reordered ontological foundation of the new creation is firmly laid (see above chapter 7.2), existentially the stains of the old life are still visible. The paradox of God’s act of salvation is that the old ontological-existential structures are still operative in our earthly life, while the new ones are beginning to take shape in the person of faith at the same time. The simultaneity of old and new existential experiences is part of the mystery of salvation.

9.7 Alterity One key aspect of salvation is its inherent alterity. This is the case on the ontological and existential sphere, but also the ethical realm. In terms of ontology, the old ontology of sin and death was changed, altered into something new. The “changing into,” alterity as such, is thus at the bottom of the ontological transformation in a soteriological context. On the existential level, the same is true. Our old existence is altered into a new one. Existential otherness goes hand in hand with ontological alterity. And similarly, the ontological-existential alterity of God’s graceful act of salvation entails an alterity in how we live our daily lives, in other words, there must be a mindful acceptance and embrace of the alterity of the other person. But in addition to the alterity of new creation, there is the anthropological level of alterity. In Christian language, the power of alterity is love (see chapter 8.3 and 8.5), concretely the love of neighbour. The biblical version of alterity culminates in the love of enemy. While Jesus alone emphasizes this kind of love, when he announces: “I say to you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt. 5:44), Paul does not mention it and speaks only of death as enemy (1 Cor. 15:26). In terms of an ethic of alterity, the call of the unconditional acceptance of the other is the great Christian challenge. Those who live by faith must

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give up stigmatizing the other as being different and break down the divide between “them” and “us.” The other will always constitute my limit and expose my boundaries of love, as Bonhoeffer, Levinas and Gadamer have amply demonstrated (see chapter 8.4). The claim of the You always impinges on the freedom of the I. In other words, the test case of Christian love is the embrace of the other in his/her alterity. This does not mean a mere tolerating of the other, but an active and genuine inclusion of the otherness of the other. Moreover, the highest and rarest form of embrace is that of eros (see chapter 8.5).

9.8 Conversation Understanding Paul is a conversation. For a conversation to be a genuine event, there must be ideally few participants8 and each participant has input into the conversation. The ideal conversation is between two persons, for only in this constellation do we have numerical symmetry and, more important, the least distractions from other voices. Gadamer insists that a successful conversation is a matter of what he calls Verweilen. The verb verweilen means “to remain awhile,” and is evident in the English term “while” and the expression “to stay awhile.” Ga­ damer insisted on remaining for awhile in relation to the observance of a piece of art, but in principle we can also extent the significance of verweilen to the dynamic of a conversation. This is easier said than done. Given our post-linguistic tendencies in the ephemeral world of virtual information, a genuine “staying for awhile” “or simply “lingering” is becoming more and more difficult. For the very notion of verweilen with a piece of art, a text or in a conversation is the opposite of ephemeral hurriedness; it requires time, repeated efforts to engage the mind fully and deeply. Verweilen aims not at acquiring information about a subject matter, but allowing ourselves to be existentially impacted by that which we contemplate “for awhile.” Why is this important? Di Cesare interprets Gadamer in this way: “Wir sind Gespräch. Jeder von uns ist nicht nur in einem Gespräch, sondern seiner intimsten Natur nach ist er selber Gespräch” (we are conversation. Each of us is not only in con8  Hans-Georg Gadamer, “Die Unfähigkeit zum Gespräch,” in Wahrheit und Me­tho­ de. Hermeneutik II. GW 2. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 2nd ed, 1993, 207–215, here 212: “Plato hat das bereits wohl gewusst; ein Gespräch ist nie mit vielen zugleich möglich oder auch nur in Anwesenheit vieler” (Plato already knew this well; a conversation is never possible with many at once, or even in the presence of many).

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versation, but by its most intimate nature, we are conversation itself.) 9 Since we are constantly in conversation with ourselves and others, conversation marks an ontological state of our being. We cannot not be in conversation. Regarding our attempt to understand Paul, it therefore follows that we are always in conversation with Paul himself, but also with others. Said differently, the conversation about understanding Paul is un-ending and open-ended.

9.9 Ending The end point of this study is its pointing to a continued conversation. Because of the hermeneutical openness of Pauline scholarship, the end is not a final word, but the first word in a renewed and ongoing dialogue. Since no understanding of Paul can hermeneutically and existentially be definitive, every conversation about the apostle can only function as a milestone in that endeavour, but never its conclusion. When it comes to understanding life, we too can only understand life step by step, moment by moment, experience by experience, insight by insight, but never in its totality. What is the takeaway from this study of Paul? When everything has been examined, discussed, arranged and re-positioned – what is new? What are the elements that are enduring? What are the inferences for the person who wants to live according to the wisdom of Paul? If the reading of Paul in these pages is robust, then there are two major consequences that are unavoidable. The first is that an existential reading of Paul – where the power of sin is the presenting issue to which the resurrected Jesus of Nazareth is the answer – shifts the entire scholarly discussion away from what has been known for decades, first as the old perspective and more recently as the new perspective. When Ed Sanders published his works on Paul, his intention was not so much to inaugurate the new perspective on Paul as it was to correct what he believed to be a false understanding of Judaism. Nonetheless, as is now well-known and widely accepted, the implications of his efforts lead to a substantial reappraisal of Paul. This is a good thing, but in my view not the answer to understanding Paul. The curious but overlooked detail in the move toward the new perspective is that Sanders was literally on the mark in his understanding of sin as 9 

Donatella Di Cesare, Gadamer. Ein philosophisches Porträt, 203.

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a power. He also understood that for Paul, Jesus was the answer to this human and cosmic plight. In other words, Sanders comprehended that a radical, death-serving plight needed an even more radical solution. In fact, only a solution that was stronger than death could suffice. That solution was the resurrection. In the resurrection, death itself died. Current scholarship, in my estimate, needs to get beyond a fair-weather solution that presents Jesus as a kind of wonderful guy who was used by God to fulfill the promises made to Abraham, Israel and the Gentile humanity. These things are crucial, but they are not the radical answer called for by the plight. The question of social markers, inclusion of Gentiles, the question of the law etc. are all secondary to the question of how to overcome the deathblow of sin. If the resurrection of Jesus the Christ is not the central axis of Pauline theology, then whatever is dependent on the axis will wobble in the winds of theological speculation. A second consequence of my presentation of Paul reaches deep into Christian existence. This outcome is as important as the first one. Couched in the language of a question: how can we scholars communicate in a way that meets people in their everyday lives? How is our research applicable to a wide spectrum of Christians? Though many Christians may be untouched directly by academic discourse on Paul – they are not unaffected by the experiences of their daily lives. Every Christian experiences life through the filter of existential reality. And herein lies the crux. In my estimation, a large portion of Christians globally are guided by a form of Christian faith that is predicated on a moral reduction of Jesuanic and Pauline teaching. To put it bluntly, it is a form of faith that centres on the ideas that Christians do, or not do, certain behaviours. On that basis, even if inadvertently, Christian faith is thus largely degraded to morals. The unfortunate foundation of such misunderstood faith is the ignorance of the difference between sin and sins, and thus is a fertile soil of widespread feelings of guilt, shame and personal inadequacy. As the bottom line, then, I am asking the readers of this monograph to reflect, reconsider and reconceive their understanding of the entire Pauline tradition. Jesus’ definitive defeat of the power of sin and death is nothing but revolutionary. What would happen if Christians would leave behind a narrow moralism for genuine and authentic love – for God, self, the other and the world? The first step to such a renewal is the scholarly attempt to come to terms with the distinction of sin and sins and all its wide and complex profundities that impinge on our existence.

Postscript

Chapter 10

Notes on Perspectives The ideas expressed in this book emerged not as the result of my engagement with the old and new perspectives on Paul, nor with any other perspective for that matter. But since there is still much conversation about the old versus the now new and dominating perspective on Paul, it is important for me to clarify my own views of these perspectives vis-à-vis my understanding of the apostle. Again, I need to emphasize that from the beginning the development of the ideas in this monograph had little to do with the old or the new perspectives. I studied Bultmann, not because he was a representative of the old perspective, but because Heidegger was his colleague in Marburg and left his traces of existential thinking on Bultmann. The new perspective and existentialist thought are nearly incompatible, at least according to the polemic of N. T. Wright. Even though I was a student when the new perspective replaced the old one, I viewed both perspectives with some degree of dissatisfaction, because of theological and philosophical reasons. At that time, over three decades ago, I did not fully understand why I preferred a distance from both perspectives, but especially the new perspective. Initially, I suppose, the new perspective became popular quite fast without anyone really giving a critical account of its own inner logic, substance and coherence. My suspicion grew when I realized that the reasons both perspectives are so weak – even theologically untenable – has to do with the fact that they both fail to give an adequate account of sin, the actual human predicament, namely the ontology of sin. After much hesitation, I decided to include this short chapter in this book, as a kind of a postscript. The purpose of the chapter is not to analyse the new perspective in a comprehensive manner, but merely from the position of the existential perspective. My aim is rather modest. I hold the view that a scholarly opinion and position must stand on its own feet, so to speak, because it is convincing by virtue of its own inner coherence, arguments and conclusions and not because other views, insights and perspectives are polemically rejected or maligned. In our case, I am encouraging all intellectually honest Pauline scholars to review the claims of the new per-

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spective. In short, I am questioning whether it is really the case that the new perspective has a proper, namely a conceptually and theologically grounded understanding of sin and sins, and the corresponding understanding of christology and soteriology? And why is it so important to review these questions? It is, in my view, because the new perspective has become the silent and ubiquitous consensus, only occasionally challenged.1 This may give the false impression that apparently now Paul has finally been discovered and portrayed for what he “really meant” and wanted to say. If so, this poses a serious problem.

10.1  Perspectives – So What? When the term “perspective” is applied to the study of Paul, what is implied is a specific angle, view, lens, understanding or insight into what the apostle taught and how we should understand it. For this reason, every perspective needs to be qualified by an adjective. Hence we speak of the “old” or “new” perspective on Paul, or an “apocalyptic” or “Jewish” or “feminine” perspective and many more. The word perspective thus functions as the common denominator of how a particular reading of Paul is described. The “old” perspective is just that: old and therefore not as good as the “new” perspective; and the “new” perspective is challenged by a “radical” or “radical new” perspective. Though there may be some benefit in designating one’s reading of Paul in terms of a perspective, ultimately this kind of language obscures more than it illuminates. In the end it does not matter so much whether a person tenaciously holds to the old or the new perspective, or really whatever other perspective already exists or may be sold on the Pauline stock exchange in the near future as the final and winning perspective. Strictly speaking, what I am presenting here under the subtitle of this monograph – The Existential Perspective – is not really another perspective on Paul. Even though I have argued that an unbiased reading is hermeneutically impossible because every perspective is predicated on a hermeneutic prejudice, I will momentarily accept the

1  For an early critique see Seeyon Kim, Paul and the New Perspective. WUNT 140. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2002 and Stephen Westerholm, Perspectives Old and New on Paul. The “Lutheran” Paul and His Critics. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 2004. For a more recent and extensive one, see Christoph Heilig, J. Thomas Hewitt and Michael F. Bird (eds). God and the Faithfulness of Paul. A Critical Examination of the Pauline Theology of N. T. Wright. WUNT 2/413. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2016.

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designation of “perspective,” but only to differentiate my own understanding of Paul. The key to understanding Paul is not through a perspective. In fact, I choose the word understanding deliberately over the word reading. Understanding includes the text, is even based on the Pauline text, but it goes beyond the Pauline text, and acknowledges that it does so. Indeed, it is life itself that compels us to go beyond the text. Paul did not say everything that can be said about life; existence is much broader than Paul’s letters may suggest. Paul provides us a map to find our way around the landscape of life, but he does not address every station on the way in detail. In other words, Paul’s text does have authority, but not the exclusive authority over our existence. Our God-given life is the final authority, the life lived and formed in the mode of being in faith. Just as the Pauline text does explain life, life itself – or as I have often said: Dasein and existence – must and does also explain Pauline texts. The two entities are reciprocal and not static. But their overlap is fragmentary and not complete. Neither can explain the other fully and that is their beauty and freedom, but also their limit. This then means that the dynamic to understand Paul is not between this and that perspective, but between our existence and understanding that very existence through the theology of Paul. So what? My proposal is radical – etymologically, radix, implies going to the root – because it does not focus on perspectives but deals with questions of life and death, with existence and non-existence. This monograph does not have as its aim the discussion of perspectives, either old or new, or even the existential perspective. Understanding existence itself is the aim, or more precisely, how Paul’s teaching can aid us in coming to understand existence. The reader who has persevered to reading this book to the finish line is faced with the challenge to scrutinize critically the old and the new perspective claims, and to give a fair consideration to my proposal to understand Paul existentially, based on the ontological distinction between sin and sin, and all the ethical implications such a construal entails. One can downgrade the existential understanding of Paul with the blink of an eye, but one can never get away from one’s own life and all the existential intricacies it entails. While perspectives can be debated endlessly, there are no shortcuts out of our ontological dilemma. Every person has his or her ontic challenges.

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10.2  All Perspectives are Culturally Biased Every perspective has a cultural and therefor an existential anchor. This anchor is the matrix of broad cultural, social, intellectual and – in the case of a Pauline scholarship – usually also Christian or religious features. N. T. Wright discusses these exemplarily in the case of Ernst Käsemann. At the beginning of his essay “A New Tübingen School? Ernst Käsemann and his Commentary on Romans (1982),”2 Wright offers a profound hermeneutical insight. He ruminates: “it was Käsemann who made me realize the full extent of what most Anglo-Saxon students sense when reading German exegetes: they are asking quite different questions, within a different philosophical and cultural climate, from those with which we are familiar.”3 Wright’s recognition of the “different philosophical and cultural climate” is of immense hermeneutical significance. Without exception, every interpreter of the apostle Paul has his/her unique world, a Sitz im Leben, predicated on cultural assumptions and hermeneutic biases. Wright is correct when he assigns Käsemann to “the world of postwar German Lutheranism, bruised and shocked after the ‘church struggle’ of the 1930s and 1940s, horrified by the Holocaust, bewildered to discover that Naziism is still not eradicated, fearful lest the church again be seduced into compromising the gospel.”4 Wright also perceptively observes that one’s cultural and hermeneutical assumptions are not disconnected to one’s academic work, but rather are the backbone on which we pivot our interpretations. In Käsemann’s case, Wright clarifies, “Germany has signally refused to allow the academic to be isolated from the ‘real world’, and Käsemann stands in the noble tradition of those who are determined to integrate all the different sides of a theologian’s existence.”5 Here is the key to existential interpretation. Interpreters such as Käsemann seek to “integrate all the different sides of a theologian’s existence,” or more precisely I would say, seek to integrate their existence as theologian with the different sides of theological insights and the world. The key term is existence. Käsemann did not see himself as a theologian who did his academic work – in this case: writing a commentary on the Letter to the Romans – as if his understanding of Paul had nothing to do with the real world of postwar Germany. Only if we keep 2  N. T. Wright, Pauline Perspectives. Essays on Paul 1978–2013. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2013, 52–67. 3 Wright, Pauline Perspectives, 52. 4 Wright, Pauline Perspectives, 54. 5 Wright, Pauline Perspectives, 55.

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this in the back of our minds will we, who are removed from that generation, be able to give a fair reading to Käsemann, his teacher Bultmann and their philosopher colleagues Heidegger and Gadamer, and many others. Without going into details here, suffice it to say that thinkers such as Kierkegaard, Sartre, Camus and more recently Agamben, Vattimo, Žižek and other European postmodern philosophers are all embedded in their unique cultural and hermeneutical background and thereby shaped in their existence. So are we. For the sake of completeness, we must add that every Pauline interpreter is subject to the same dynamic of integrating “all the different sides of a theologian’s existence.” But Wright gives us one further honest glimpse into his existence. Speaking “for those like myself, who as though born out of due time, [are] unable to feel the last war as part of their own experience.”6 This is fair enough. It is very difficult to penetrate another person’s large cultural matrix on a substantial and appreciative level. The best we can often do as interpreters of quite varied backgrounds is to recognize our differences, attempt genuine understanding and shy away from shallow and superficial reductions of complex phenomena. Despite Wright’s fair appraisal of cultural shaping in all matters theological, it comes of no surprise that he finds it nearly impossible to appreciate existential interpretations of Paul. His cultural world is not the world of Käsemann and neither that of existential thought. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, Wright’s remarks on existentialism, or “the rhetoric of existentialism,”7 are rather thin. He notes that “it is important to say, right from the start, that none of these interesting lines of thought [i.e. existentialism] have very much to do with Christianity, with the gospel of Jesus Christ or with Christian behaviour.”8 It is bewildering that Wright’s understanding and parody of existentialism posits that there is no relation to understanding the Christian faith; his view is the very opposite of what existential thinkers claim. There seems an inexplicable disconnect given what he has said earlier about Käsemann and how he attempted to connect the gospel to the “real world” of postwar Germany and the danger of bourgeoisie Lutheranism. Throughout his massive literary output, Wright’s viewpoint on existential thought is consistently negative. In one essay, Wright laments that contemporary evangelicalism is closer to Bultmann and “his existentialist call 6 Wright,

Pauline Perspectives, 55. Pauline Perspectives, 264. 8 Wright, Pauline Perspectives, 264. 7 Wright,

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for decision”9 than many may think. He continues to warn that “our great danger at the moment, is that in many evangelical circles people are preaching existentialism in Pauline dress.”10 The issue is that “popular existentialism… leads to the cult of sincerity over against objective truth.”11 This quip, of course, misses the mark completely; the “uncovering” of truth in Heidegger (see above chapter 2.5) is fundamental to existential thinking. Elsewhere Wright wonders how even within the theological academy can “old perspective diehards, be seduced back into a romantic or existential individualism?”12 Apparently, as respectable scholars we must oppose sixteenth- and twentieth-century enemies of Paul, we must rescue “the apostle of existentialism, experiencing authentic existence incompatible with the struggles faced by the Paul of history in Romans 7 or Galatians 5.”13 I am not entirely sure what Wright means by these claims, but as always in Pauline studies, everything is open to debate. In another place Wright acknowledges that Paul “had a plight” although “it is not to be identified with that of the puzzled existentialist.”14 To be sure, even Israel had to deal with “human sin” but “the critique cannot be reduced to terms of existentialist muddle with Jews happening to play the leading role in the Sartrean drama.”15 We will return to Wright’s (mis)understanding of existential thinking at the end of this chapter. Let us first review how the new perspective came to be, what it espouses and how it stacks up against an existential reading of Paul.

10.3  The Beginning of the New Perspective This may come as a surprise to many new perspective champions, but the founders of the new perspective are neither James Dunn nor N. T. Wright. It was none other than the eminent Karl Barth. A theologian and not a 9 Wright,

Pauline Perspectives, 38. Pauline Perspectives, 38–39. 11 Wright, Pauline Perspectives, 38. 12  N. T. Wright, Justification. God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision. Downers Grove: IVP Academic 2009, 131. Wright also, rather curiously, connects “the normal (existentialist) view,” presumably an emphasis on individual salvation to Cranfield’s discussion of Romans 7:13–25 and Käsemann’s exposition of Romans 8:18–22; cf. Wright, Pauline Perspectives, 49, 62. 13 Wright, Pauline Perspectives, 16. 14  N. T. Wright, The Climax of the Covenant. Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 1993, 260. 15 Wright, The Climax of the Covenant, 261. 10 Wright,

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Pauline scholar? Yes, precisely! There is a kind of ironic twist as to the beginning of what has been called the new perspective on Paul for over three decades now. Whoever we may credit with the claim of first introducing the expression “new perspective,” probably Dunn rather than Wright, the key idea behind this “new” thinking on Paul – namely that the doctrine of justification is not the key element of Pauline theology – is definitely not their invention. Supporters of the new perspective are quick to point to Wrede16 and Schweitzer17 as those who had the initial insights in this regard, but there is a thinker who has been overlooked. It is none other than Karl Barth. It was customary for Barth to engage people of various theological backgrounds in stimulating conversation. During one such occasion, over a span of four days in November 1963, the then 77-year-old Barth met a group of theologically interested youth pastors from Germany in a restaurant in Basel.18 The format of the conversation was that a moderator would collect questions and the distinguished professor would answer those queries and expand the discussion further. The fourth session had the title das Problem des Primats der Rechtfertigungslehre im Luthertum (the problem of giving primacy to the doctrine of justification in Lutheranism). The initial question that was addressed to Barth was this: “was haben Sie gegen den lutherischen Ansatz die gesamte Dogmatik von der Rechtfertigungs­ lehre her aufzubauen” (why do you object to the Lutheran starting point to organize dogmatics from the doctrine of justification)?19 In a manner typical of a professor, Barth first reminded the interlocutor that would he have read his Church Dogmatics,20 well, then he would know the answer. Even so, the professor did not mind repeating himself: “Ich habe gegen den lutherischen Ansatz, dass er mir… [zu] begrenzt, dass er mir etwas zu borniert ist” (I have against the Lutheran approach that it is … [too] limited for me, that it is a little too narrow-minded for me) 21 and that includes, for example, “die ganze Geschichte mit ‘Gesetz und Evangelium’” (the whole story with ‘law and gospel’).22 Moreover, “ich kann 16 

William Wrede, Paul. London: Philip Green 1907. Schweitzer, The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle. New York: Seabury Press

17  Albert

1968. 18  For a record of that conversation see Karl Barth, Gespräche 1963. Gesamtausgbe 41. Zurich: TVZ 2005, 235–333. Even at Barth’s advanced age, those conversations (Gespräche) were erudite and challenging. 19  Karl Barth, Gespräche 1963, 258. 20 Cf. Kirchliche Dogmatik IV/1, 573–589 and IV/2, 565–578. 21  Karl Barth, Gespräche 1963, 258. 22 Barth, Gespräche 1963, 259.

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einfach nicht finden, dass der Christus der drei Evangelien oder der Christus des Johannesevangeliums, dass seine Botschaft oder Er als die Botschaft Gottes, als der λόγος [Wort] Gottes sich ‘reduzieren’ lässt auf die Rechtfertigungslehre” (I simply cannot find that the Christ of the three Gospels or the Christ of John’s Gospel, that His message or He as the message of God, as the λόγος [word] of God can be ‘reduced’ to the doctrine of justification).23 But Barth brings also the apostle Paul into the discussion. “Ja, was habe ich dagegen? Ich habe dagegen, dass ich 1. Kor. 1,30 lese: ‘Jesus Christus ist uns gemacht zur Weisheit, (dann – das heisst:) zur Gerechtigkeit, zur Heiligung und zur Erlösung’. Und das ist ein bisschen mehr als dieser Engpass, in den die lutherische Theologie unter Führung des grossen Martin im 16. Jahrhundert hineingekommen ist, wo alles und jedes auf den Nenner des ersten dieser Begriffe gekommen [ist]: auf den Begriff ‘Gerechtigkeit’” (Yes, what do I have against it? I object to reading 1 Cor. 1:30: ‘Jesus Christ is made unto us wisdom, (then – that is:) righteousness, sanctification and redemption.’ And that’s a little bit more than this bottleneck that Lutheran theology got into under the leadership of the great Martin in the 16th century, where everything and anything [came] down to the denominator of the first of these terms: the term ‘righteousness’).24 It is clear from Barth’s remarks that he sees the Christian message severely curtailed if it is reduced to Gerechtigkeit, justice. His argument here is based on Paul, namely 1 Cor. 1:30, where justice is only one of four terms that designate God’s work in Jesus Christ for us. The really fascinating thing is that Barth arrived at this conclusion not as a Pauline scholar but as a diehard theologian. Contrary to what new perspective proponents would want to be the case, Barth did not reach his conclusion because he rejected the old perspective or a deficient form of Judaism, but because he was thinking theologically. Indeed, he imposed his theological lens on the entire Pauline corpus, so to speak, and anticipated the whole new perspective debate in a few sentences, possibly over a glass of wine in a restaurant! So much for the novel claim of the new perspective. Is Barth a naïve theologian who does not understand “objective” scholarship? Does he not take seriously that exegesis must be done for its own sake and not for the sake of theology, or dogmatics, or a theological system? Far from it. Barth asserts that no reading of scripture can be con-

23 Barth, 24 

Gespräche 1963, 268. Karl Barth, Gespräche 1963, 258.

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strained “durch irgendwelchen Apparat” (by any apparatus), 25 by which he means presuppositions that the interpreter brings to scripture. Then he continues: “Und der Apparat könnte heissen: eine Ontologie, oder könnte heissen: eine Erkenntnistheorie, oder könnte heissen: eine Anthropologie, oder könnte heissen: eine Kosmologie, eine sogenannte Weltanschauung. Es ist nicht verboten, eine Ontologie zu haben, und sogar eine Weltanschauung darf man haben, das ist alles erlaubt. Die Frage ist nur, wenn es jetzt darum gehen soll, dem Zeugnis der Schrift oder also dem in der Schrift Bezeugten zu begegnen, dass man dann so gut sei, diese Brille einen Augenblick abzunehmen und nicht durchaus alles durch diese Voraussetzungen hindurch verstehen zu wollen, sondern damit zu rechnen: Ja, wenn es um den ‘Ersten und Letzten’ geht, ‘ich war tot, und siehe, ich bin lebendig.’ in welcher Ontologie sollte das eigentlich Platz haben?” (And the apparatus could be called: an ontology, or could be called: an epistemology, or could be called: an anthropology, or could be called: a cosmology, a socalled worldview. It is not forbidden to have an ontology, and even a worldview one may have, that is all allowed. The question is only, if it is now a question of meeting the testimony of the Scriptures or that which is testified in the Scriptures, that one should then be so good as to take off these glasses for a moment and not to want to understand everything through these presuppositions, but to reckon with it: Yes, if it is about the ‘first and last,’ ‘I was dead, and behold, I am alive.’ in which ontology should this actually have place?).26 What Barth wants to emphasize is this: “Es darf die Freiheit des Wortes Gottes nicht durch eine Souveränität beschränkt werden, die wir an seine Bezeugung schon herantragen, sondern es muss ihm seine Souveränität gelassen werden” (the freedom of the Word of God must not be limited by a sovereignty that we already attach to its testimony, but its sovereignty must be left to it).27 No doubt, Barth’s reminder that the intrinsic freedom of God’s Word should not be limited by another perspective or lens (what he calls sovereignty) is critically important as a foundational principle of exegesis. The problem, however, is that it is impossible to read and interpret scripture without or apart from a “sovereignty” that functions as a filter for scriptural interpretation. No one can read scripture objectively, free of a prejudicial filter. As human beings, we do not exist in an intellectual, emotional and spiritual vacuum, as if we were able to do things objectively. As 25 

Karl Barth, Gespräche 1963, 245. Gespräche 1963, 235. 27 Barth, Gespräche 1963, 245. 26 Barth,

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I pointed out in chapter 1.4, objectivity as hermeneutical baseline is a myth, even for Barth himself. Regarding hermeneutic objectivity, Barth’s massive Church Dogmatics is also predicated on his hermeneutical assumptions, biases and prejudices. He himself had rejected the Lutheran approach to order dogmatic theology around the core theme of God’s justification, but in his Church Dogmatics, Barth imposed his own ordering principle, his own “sovereignty” or perspective that influenced his interpretation of biblical texts. His approach to biblical texts, some of his critics point out, can be clearly seen in the first edition of his commentary on Romans. His theological lens filtered the Pauline letter. As for Barth and any other biblical scholar, hermeneutic imposition is also true for Wright’s overarching attempt to subsume everything in the biblical narratives – the entire history of Israel, the life, death and resurrection of Jesus and the Pauline reflection on both Israel and Jesus – to create a metanarrative that squeezes every detail into a fairy-tale straight jacket never before seen in Pauline interpretation. And, this must also be admitted, a hermeneutic imposition is always true for an existential reading of biblical texts.

10.4  Sin in the New Perspective In this section I am discussing N. T. Wright’s view on sin as he is the protagonist par excellence of the new perspective. I am assessing what his overarching narrative on Paul purports regarding sin – the issue to which Jesus is the answer – from an ontological-existential perspective. In other words, how does Wright see the problem to which Paul responds by offering his understanding of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. To give Wright a fair reading on the question of sin is somewhat complicated because of the voluminous output of his essays and books on Paul. I will offer two comments here that will illustrate his discussion of sin and sins. First, many of his writings hardly deal at all with sin. For example, a perusal of his popular book, Paul. In Fresh Perspective,28 shows that the topic of sin receives hardly a mentioning,29 leave alone a substantiated discussion to why sin is problematic for Israel, hence for Paul and the rest of the cosmos. For a book aimed at a wider audience, this is a rather strange 28 

N. T. Wright, Paul. In Fresh Perspective. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2009. Paul. In Fresh Perspective, 36–37, 39.

29 Wright,

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thing; it gives a distorted, at least a severely abbreviated portrayal of what Paul was up against. The reader could quite easily get the impression that Paul is all about a happy end story without being drawn into the dramatic plight. To assume that the plight to which Jesus is the answer as self-evident assumption is unbecoming of any scholarly book on Paul, least of all for a thinker of Wright’s stature. The picture is not much different in Wright’s collection of essays. As Paul. In Fresh Perspective, so likewise the volume Pauline Perspectives. Essays on Paul, 1978–2013,30 has no entry in the index under “sin,” but an entry “plight and solution.” Although Wright does employ the term “sin” and “sinners,” he prefers to speak of the “problem” or “plight” that Israel, all humanity and the cosmos had to deal with, and he does so usually in the context of discussing Sanders’ suggestion that Paul’s theological movement was “from solution to plight.”31 In an earlier essay, Wright speaks of Adam and “universal sin” and that Israel too is “in Adam.”32 In these and numerous other places Wright does indeed speak of sin, but not so much from a conviction that it is the starting point, or a significant point of departure, for the rest of Pauline thought. This then hints already at the question whether in Wright’s grandiose synthesis of Pauline thought there is indeed a formal, conceptual correspondence between plight and solution, sin and salvation. Wright’s starting point is that of a grand metanarrative. Second, a more differentiated train of thought in Wright’s understanding of sin can be seen in his recent and most comprehensive publication on Paul, his enormous 1658-pages Paul and the Faithfulness of God.33 In an extraordinarily long chapter, “The One God of Israel, Freshly Revealed,” Wright devotes a section to “The Dark Side of Revised Monotheism: the New Vision of Evil.” Part of this section is a discussion of the theme of plight and solution in Pauline scholarship. Wright sets out the framework for how he resolves this question: there was Paul’s original plight (a) which encountered Jesus as solution (b) and therefore he reimagined the plight once more (c) from the position of a reworked monotheism.34 To understand where Wright is coming from and how he discusses the plight and solution dynamic, it is helpful to recall that all of Wright’s the30  N. T. Wright, Pauline Perspectives. Essays on Paul, 1978–2013. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2013. 31 Wright, Pauline Perspectives, 296–297. 32  N. T. Wright, The Climax of the Covenant, 26–27. 33  N. T. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God. Christian Origins and the Question of God, vol.  4. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2013. 34 Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God, 750.

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ologizing about Paul happens in a metanarrative frame that has at its centre the covenant and God’s faithfulness to fulfill that covenant through the Messiah. In Wright’s own words: “God had a single plan all along through which he intended to rescue the world and the human race, and that this single plan was centered upon the call of Israel, a call which Paul saw coming to fruition in Israel’s representative, the Messiah.”35 I agree that the trajectory of God’s plan for salvation history spans the arc from creation through covenant to the Messiah, is both particular with Israel and universal with humanity. If we read Paul from this perspective, Wright assures us, then “you can keep all the jigsaw pieces on the table.”36 Almost. There is one rather curious piece in Wright’s ordering of the puzzle and that piece is the question of how “sin” fits into his overall conjecture of the Pauline view of the world. As we just noted, Wright prefers to speak of the plight or problem, but that still leaves ambiguous in what manner God’s single plan was meant “to rescue the world and the human race,” through the Messiah. If both world and humanity need rescue, then what precisely is the issue, who or what needs rescue? Given the context of his metanarrative, Wright appropriately insists that “the stronger your monotheism, the sharper the problem of evil. That is inevitable; if there is one God, why are things in such a mess.”37 Yes, a mess indeed, but why? Wright is also much clearer than in previous publications that Israel is “acting out… the primeval sin of Adam.”38 Elsewhere Wright defines sin, ἁμαρτία, as “the deadly infection of the whole human race, Israel included”39 and sin and death as “suprahuman forces.”40 Again, he sees that the real issue is sin and death: “the ‘last enemy’, death, remains as yet still powerful, though defeated in principle through the resurrection. There is no progressive overcoming of death; it isn’t the case that, because of the work of the gospel, people die a little less, or that death is less unpleasant. The ultimate resurrection … will be as sudden, new and shocking as was Easter Day itself.”41 Well said. And again, “sin itself needed to be dealt with, not merely ignored; Torah was right to draw attention to it.”42 All these descriptions of sin seem to suggest that Wright has a reasonable con35  N. T. Wright, Justification. God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009, 35; original emphasis. 36 Wright, Justification, 35. 37 Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God, 737. 38 Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God, 742. 39 Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God, 754. 40 Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God, 756. 41 Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God, 548. 42 Wright, Justification, 124.

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ception of the distinction between sin and sins, but if so, he does not make it explicit. There are, however, also statements in his writings that cast a long shadow and serious doubt on it. For example, Wright speaks of Jesus and “his messianic death for sins and new life to launch God’s new creation,”43 and similarly, because of the covenant promise, “God deals with sins through the faithful, obedient death of Jesus the Messiah (Romans 3:4–26).”44 He continues to assert that God’s righteousness “includes his duty to punish sin in line with the covenant provisions in Deuteronomy 27–29.”45 And again Wright asserts, in a polemical context against the old perspective, that “of course the center of it all is that ‘the Messiah died for our sins’!”46 Elsewhere he speaks generally of “salvation from sin.”47 These statements are the potential Achilles heel of Wright’s understanding of sin, and by extension, for the whole project of the new perspective. As we have emphasized repeatedly, sin is an ontological structure, a state, a reality that characterizes our existence. Since it is a power, its solution requires that it be dealt with as a power; as such it cannot be forgiven. Only concrete sins can be forgiven. Now, to say that the Messiah died “for our sins” is, strictly speaking false, as I have argued above in chapter 3, and renders incorrect Wright assertion of Jesus’ “messianic death for sins and new life to launch God’s new creation.”48 While the second part of the statement is correct, the first is simply false. If sin is indeed an enslaving power that affects all humanity, as Wright himself maintains, and further, if sin is ontological, then it follows that the exclusive reason why the Messiah had to suffer, die and be resurrected is not for the forgiveness of sins, but for the overcoming of the ultimate enemy, namely death – non-life, non-being. Against this critique, Wright would of course object that he has no lesser advocate than Paul himself. And he is correct – but only when the apostle is interpreted literally and not beyond himself. Paul declares in 1 Cor 15:3 that “Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures” (ὅτι Χριστὸς ἀπέθανεν ὑπὲρ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν κατὰ τὰς γραφάς) and in Gal 1:4 notes that Jesus “gave himself for our sins” (τοῦ δόντος ἑαυτὸν ὑπὲρ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν). To understand these Pauline statements (see chapter 3), we must 43 Wright,

Justification, 106. Justification, 67. 45 Wright, Justification, 67. 46 Wright, Justification, 131. 47 Wright, Justification, 127. 48 Wright, Justification, 106. 44 Wright,

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bear in mind that Paul’s hermeneutic – his re-thinking of the role of Jesus the Messiah – was itself a hermeneutic work in progress that needed constant revisions. Existential interpretation takes the right, I would even argue has the responsibility, to take Paul’s thought further by means of reasonable clarification. As I have said before, to clarify Paul, we must go beyond, but not against Paul. The issue that Paul himself introduced to Christian theology, the distinction between sin and sins, was not adequately resolved by him in his theological discourse with his congregations. And for that we do not in any way fault him. Instead, it is incumbent on us, the contemporary interpreter, to sharpen Paul’s ideas by means of theological and philosophical insights.

10.5  The Messiah in the New Perspective The inconclusive stance on sin and sins in N. T. Wright’s grand metanarrative brings to the surface another significant question, conceivably the most decisive one regarding his entire project. It is the question of the purpose and function of the life of the Messiah. It is not the question of whether Paul saw Jesus as the Messiah, whether Χριστός should be consistently understood as Messiah in the Pauline corpus, or whether Χριστός is purely a surname, a proper name or perhaps a title of Jesus. With Wright, contra many scholars, I tend to assign great significance to Paul’s thinking that Jesus of Nazareth was the expected Messiah of Israel.49 However, irrespective of how one answers this question, the most important one regarding the Messiah is a different one altogether. Why did Jesus of Nazareth have to come into the life and history of Israel? Why is he the fulfillment of a promise that Yahweh made to Abraham? Why did this ordinary Jewish man engage in religious debate with the leaders and guardians of Torah observation? What was at stake? And why did this man have to die and be resurrected? In other words, why is the tormenting death of crucifixion part of this metanarrative? Was there really no other final scene possible in this divine drama? And to bring all 49  For

an assessment of the role of the Messiah in N. T. Wright’s work, see Aquila H. I. Lee, “Messianism and Messiah in Paul? Christ as Jesus?,” in Christoph Heilig, J. Thomas Hewitt and Michael F. Bird (eds), God and the Faithfulness of Paul. A Critical Examination of the Pauline Theology of N. T. Wright. WUNT 2/413. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2016, 375–392 and J. Thomas Hewitt and Matthew V. Novenson, “Participationism and Messiah Christology in Paul,” in Christoph J. Heilig et al (eds). God and the Faithfulness of Paul. A Critical Examination of the Pauline Theology of N. T. Wright, 393–415.

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these question into a focal point: what is the relation between sin, sins and the Messiah who died and was resurrected? What is the exact correlation between plight and solution? At first glance these questions may seem rather strange. For on almost every page Wright seems to make a point, sometimes directly, often indirectly, about the importance of the Messiah. Of course, the Messiah plays the leading role in Wright’s presentation of the divine-human tragedy. For Wright “the Messiah sums up his people in himself,” because he is “the representative of Israel, the representative … of the true Israel, the worldwide people of God.”50 But what exactly does the Messiah represent for Israel and the worldwide Israel? What does messianic representation achieve for humanity? My reading of Wright’s work is that the Messiah is the fulfillment of the promises given to Israel, beginning with Abraham and culminating in an eschatological and new creation that includes Jews and Gentiles. I take it that there would be hardly anyone reading the Bible who would disagree with that statement. But what about the details of that summary? My concern with this kind of new perspective theology is that the role of the Messiah is watered down significantly. My assessment is based on the definition of the problem (sin), the categorical correlation (means and mode of salvation vis-à-vis sin) and the specific place or role of the Messiah within that scheme. Given Wright’s view of sin as a non-ontological category, it is not surprizing that for him salvation, or righteousness in the sense of God’s faithfulness, is principally a restored relation between God and Israel and the Gentiles, that is to say everyone who has faith. The troubling question is this then: does Wright’s understanding of the single plan51 of God with the chief persona of the triumphant Messiah actually backfire into making the tormenting death and resurrection of Jesus merely irrelevant? If the key issue for all humanity is not sin but sins, then Wright’s reading of Paul could be accepted as a plausible account. But it would still raise a nearly insurmountable psychological issue: why would a benevolent God offer the violent death of his son when there was already an ethical code in the Torah of how to deal with ethical transgressions? This is, indeed, a question for the “puzzled existentialist” and all thinking persons alike. Let me say once again that, strictly speaking, salvation is only possible if we understand by it the total defeat, abolition and recue from the power of 50 Wright, 51 Wright,

Pauline Perspectives, 7. Justification, 35; original emphasis

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sin, death and all evil. This is quite a different matter than sins understood as the concrete acts of transgression. These were dealt with according to Torah and the priestly codes in the Temple. The actual atonement for human sins did not require for Jesus to die and be resurrected; the forgiveness of sins could have been handled as it had been along apart from the Messiah. When Wright speaks of Jesus and “his messianic death for sins and new life to launch God’s new creation,”52 and that “God deals with sins through the faithful, obedient death of Jesus the Messiah (Romans 3:4–26),”53 there is an unbridgeable gap between his new perspective and an ontological-existential reading. It is intellectually and psychologically difficult to figure out why Jesus would have to die in the first place. In summary, then, I find a lack of categorical correspondence between the plight in Paul (sin) and the solution (the abolition of sin in the resurrection) in the new perspective.

10.6  Existential Muddle and New Perspective Fantasy Fairness in scholarly appraisal is a virtue, Pauline studies no exception.54 For this reason, I want to be careful not to extract a theology of sin and the Messiah that does not reflect the larger overarching aim of Wright. Much has been noted about Wright’s massive and all-encompassing thesis on Paul, that takes account of almost every page of the Bible, the socio-religious context of the apostle, the various strands of Judaism, the political context and of course the letters of Paul himself. Jörg Frey has said aloud what many a scholar may have silently thought, namely that “the amount of constructive fantasy”55 in Wright’s single-plan-of-God thesis is astounding. As impressive as it may be at first glance, the grand synthesis is “losing edgy details and – in some cases – also the real life of the real Paul.”56 I would add that what is lost is nothing other than the existential

52 Wright,

Justification, 106. Justification, 67. 54  There are now essays by Stephen Westerholm, “What’s Right about the New Perspective on Paul,” and by James Dunn, “What’s Right about the Old Perspective on Paul,” in Jay E. Smith and Matthew S. Harmon (ed), Studies in the Pauline Epistles. Essays in Honor of Douglas J. Moo. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Academic, 2014. 55  Jörg Frey, “Demythologizing Apocalyptic? On N. T. Wright’s Paul, Apocalyptic Interpretation, and the Constraints of Construction,” in Christoph J. Heilig et al (eds), God and the Faithfulness of Paul. A Critical Examination of the Pauline Theology of N. T. Wright, 489–531, here 525. 56  Frey, “Demythologizing Apocalyptic? On N. T. Wright’s Paul,” 525. 53 Wright,

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edge of life – Paul’s life, our lives, and all lives in-between. In sum, then, here are a few unresolved questions I have for the new perspective. 1. Wright does not really explain what sin is. He uses the term in various contexts and comments correctly on its power but is rather inconclusive in defining why sin is such a cosmic and personal issue. One would not expect that he has an existential understanding of it (that sin renders life inauthentic) but is it too much to expect that Wright would somehow explicate that sin is a power on the level of being? Indeed, Paul does give that much of a hint with his repeated insistence in Rom. 7 that every person is enslaved to sin! 2. I do get the repeated impression that sin is more of a “secondary crater” (to use Schweitzer’s designation for the theme of justification in Paul), or even a “tertiary crater,” a hurdle perhaps that Wright must jump over because Paul put it in his way. Typically, scholarly presentations of Paul are the answer to the question what Paul saw as the dilemma and what he offered as its solution. If so, if the new perspective is the answer to Paul’s thought as a whole, then we must ask, what is the question to which the new perspective thinks Paul gives the answer? And what is the answer in terms of its details and substance. 4. Wright does discuss the issue of sin and the plight in Paul. Again, my impression is that references to sin function as the negative backdrop that serves as the foil to make the triumph of the Messiah all the more heroic. The Pauline narrative works better when there is a furious issue that the main hero has to overcome. 5. In any reconstruction of Pauline thinking on sin, if sin as an ontological structure is missed or ignored, and the emphasis falls on sins as transgression, then it will be difficult to find the proper place for the Messiah. As we have said so many times in this monograph, the distinction between sin and sins is decisive for a categorical correspondence with salvation. No amount of elegant and flourishing rhetoric about the wonderful culmination of Israel’s promises in the Messiah can then do justice to the predicament of our contemporary lives. 6. Every perspective that seeks to interpret Paul is existential, even if only in various degrees. In that vein, even the new perspective has an existential element. No one does Pauline scholarship without hoping for some sort of relation to real life. Feminist readings of Paul, for example, are existential in that they draw attention to the lives of women vis-à-vis men. Black, liberation, postcolonial and many other interpretive lenses are deliberately existential because they aim at a contemporary issue that needs to be addressed through what Paul said, or conceivably did not say. The

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common denominator is that of liberation and meaning. As Heidegger has demonstrated, meaning is ontologically grounded in our structures of being human and, therefore, existentially desired. By default, every Pauline interpreter’s meaning is existentially embedded in his/her existence. 7. Moreover, an ontological-existential understanding of Paul is not correct because Heidegger’s thought allows for it and because Bultmann introduced it into theological discourse. And an ontological-existential understanding of Paul is also not just false because N. T. Wright thinks so and disdains existentialist analysis in Paul. The issue with sin (and its understanding) goes much deeper. Because sin is precisely operative on the ontological level – and evades the opinions of Heidegger, Bultmann, Wright, and any other Pauline interpreter – therein lays its power and its challenge for life and the understanding of life. Sin is not a mere interpretive detail that the scholar may decide on; sin is disrupted existence. In other words, the most powerful and convincing criterium for existentialist interpretation is life itself. Every person’s life! Existentialist interpretation is pre-hermeneutical and pre-Pauline, precisely because it is predicated on being before thinking, that is before interpreting. Each person’s being comes before Pauline interpretation. 8. Moreover, existential interpretation is not based on a negative self, always seeing the bad, preoccupied with “existential muddle,” the trait of emotionally and spiritually unbalanced people who constantly struggle and find criticism with the new perspective and other positive blue-sky perspectives. Contrary to Krister Stendahl’s polemical view of the introspective conscience of western exegesis57 and in agreement with Kierkegaard, we are allowed – I dare say, we must – ask contemporary questions58 of an ancient biblical figure like the Apostle Paul. Paul himself was an existentialist,59 at least to some degree.

57 

Krister Stendahl, Paul among Jews and Gentiles. Philadelphia: Fortress Press 1976. Westerholm, Perspectives Old and New on Paul. The “Lutheran” Paul and His Critics. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2004, 445, summarizes his view of old and new perspective in this manner: “as I see things, the critics [of the old perspective] have rightly defined the occasion that elicited the formulation of Paul’s doctrine [justification by faith] and have reminded us of its first-century social and strategic significance; the ‘Lutherans,’ for their part, rightly captured Paul’s rationale and basic point. For those (like Augustine, Luther, Calvin, and Wesley) bent on applying Paul’s words to contemporary situations, it is the point rather than the historical occasion that is crucial;” emphasis added. 59  Cf. Benjamin Crowe, “Heidegger on the Apostle Paul,” in Peter Frick (ed), Paul in the Grip of the Philosophers. The Apostle and Continental Philosophy, 39–56. 58  Stephen

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9. Finally, the good news regarding the weak features of the new perspective is that, in my view, it is possible to clarify and correct its shortcomings. The path to do so must start with a proper (ontological) specification of the power of sin and death, the distinction between sin (singular) and sins (plural), and the role the Messiah plays in being the solution to the plight. Said differently, it is possible for the new perspective to incorporate these features and thereby strengthen itself; but it is not possible for the ontological-existential reading offered in these pages to embrace the new perspective without giving up the understanding it argues for in the first place.

Chapter 11

The Way of Paul: Fragmentary Existence πάντα δὲ δοκιμάζετε, τὸ καλὸν κατέχετε 1 Thess. 5:21

Our intellectual and existential formation sometimes happens in unexpected ways. My encounter with Bonhoeffer was one such unexpected but extremely significant milestone in my personal Dasein.1 Bonhoeffer came to me by surprize, then fascination. But Paul I knew, albeit superficially, long before I had heard of Bonhoeffer. The apostle became a milestone in my life, for reasons I will delineate in this short reflection. At the end of our journey on trying to understand Paul’s thinking, I would like to offer some personal musings on how and why Paul is important in my life. An appropriate way to summarize my journey with Paul is 1 Cor. 13:10: “but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end” (ὅταν δὲ ἔλθῃ τὸ τέλειον, τὸ ἐκ μέρους καταργηθήσεται). The insight I take from these words is profound. Paul knew that all our lives are “partial,” that is to say that they are fragmentary. For ontological reasons, “the complete” is impossible in our earthly lives. All our strivings consist in (meaningful) fragments but have in view the complete.

11.1  Unresolved Questions Every reader – and this inevitably includes every scholar attempting to understand Paul – brings “emotional and intellectual baggage” to the study of Paul, even before one page of his letters is read and interpreted. This emotional baggage is not necessarily all negative, it is merely, as Gadamer has shown convincingly, the treasure of our emotional predispositions and prejudices that have accumulated simply by virtue of our being human, by our existence. As a child, my existence was deeply embedded in the Chris1  For a reflection on that encounter, see my “The Way of Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Fragmentary Wholeness,” in Frick, Understanding Bonhoeffer, 285–292.

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tian tradition, particularly the Lutheran church. For the most part, this gave me a solid anchor as a teenager and young adult. At that time I had no inkling that something may not be quite right with Lutheranism because of Paul. All my life I had encountered the basic teachings of the Bible and some confessional statements that I accepted more or less without questioning. Like Paul felt no burden in living a life under Torah, so likewise I did not really feel the burden of my Christian upbringing. But just as Paul had to figure out a new meaning of his Jewish background and thereby his religious and cultural heritage, so likewise I began to question my religious beliefs. Being an introvert by nature and hesitant to jump on the bandwagon, I was less and less satisfied to repeat biblical or doctrinal statements without examining the accuracy and truth behind these statements. There were two questions that especially bothered me and gained unruly momentum once I moved to North America. One was the churchly claim “Jesus came to die for my sins,” and the other the contention that “Jesus is the answer.” I realized that even though here we have two claims on the level of bumper sticker theology, they are so widespread in the Christian church and come so easily from the lips of pastors and Christians alike that I started to become sceptical. On the intellectual level, I knew intuitively that there must be more to these claims. I wanted to find out for myself without being pressured in any way. As a good first step, I had resolved at the age of 16, that I would study Greek so I could read the New Testament for myself “in the original language.”

11.2  The Beginning of the Journey Suffice here to mention that I decided to study religious study and theology, and as much as possible, but more autodidactically, also philosophy. When I was a student at Tübingen in the mid-1980s, I was completely taken in by professors such as Hengel, Hofius, Stuhlmacher, Moltmann, Jüngel, Küng, Gese, Welker, Dalferth and many guest professors who spent their sabbaticals in Tübingen. Initially I was interested in Rabbinic Judaism, but all too soon I realized that this would be a daunting task, far too big for me to undertake. Hengel aroused my interest in Hellenistic Judaism in general and Philo of Alexandria in particular, a thinker I pursued even to the point of a doctoral dissertation, later at McMaster University. At Tübingen I also heard of Ed Sanders, and a book he apparently wrote that had an impact on

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Pauline studies around the world, less though in Tübingen at that time. My interest in Paul was piqued afresh. Because of difficult existential and family circumstances, from Tübingen I went to McMaster University, and I was more than fortunate that Ed Sanders was still teaching there. In the summer of 1987, I took a seminar on the topic of the Pharisees with him. But what I remember the most was our conversations outside of class about Judaism and Paul. To this day I recall being astonished that Sanders played down the significance of his Paul and Palestinian Judaism, even though it had already made significant waves after a decade of its publication. As is typically the case between professor and student, I soaked up all our conversations, even though I was not able to fully engage and judge Sanders’ views on many topics. At the time, I was excited by his treatment of Judaism and a little disappointed with his presentation of Paul. But as I was myself working more and more on Paul and understood Judaism more deeply, my position on Sanders’ view of Judaism and Paul became reversed: while I still think he has presented Judaism in a more balanced perspective than the old perspective, I think his presentation of Paul was at least as strong as that of Judaism. The reason for the change in my view is quite simple: Sanders’ understanding of the plight (a term he likes) in Paul is much deeper than perhaps in most Pauline scholars, especially those of the new perspective. In short, Sanders very clearly articulated that the plight in Paul is sin as a power. He consistently holds this view, including in his most recent work.2 My change from appreciating Sanders’ presentation of Paul more than his understanding of Judaism occurred in the 1990s. By the summer of 2002, I had given a first presentation on my ideas on Pauline soteriology at the International SBL Meeting in Berlin.3

11.3  The First Station on the Way: Discoveries When I studied Paul first in Tübingen in the 1980s and then at McMaster in the 1990s, because of reading Sanders monumental Paul and Palestinian Judaism, I was encountering what became more and more known as the new perspective on Paul. At that time, I was careful not to accept that read2  Cf. E. P. Sanders, E. P. Paul and Palestinian Judaism. A Comparison of Patterns of Religion. Philadelphia: Fortress Press 1977, 465–467 and The Apostle’s Life, Letters, and Thought. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2015, 621. 3  Peter Frick, “The Means and Mode of Salvation: A Hermeneutic Proposal for Clarifying Pauline Soteriology,” in Horizons in Biblical Theology 29 (2007), 203–222.

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ing of Paul blindly without examining its claims for myself (see previous chapter). As has become abundantly clear in the pages of this book, Sanders helped me to come to grips that the issue in Paul is the power of sin. But even more significant than Sanders’ position were two more discoveries: First, there was my own understanding of the power of sin vis-à-vis the acts of sins in Romans 7 and elsewhere in Paul. Second, by also studying Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and to a lesser degree Paul Tillich and Karl Barth, I came to realize that theologians, and not just Pauline scholars, are able to understand Paul quite well. Exegesis and theology are not mutually exclusive, and they are not enemies. When Bonhoeffer was the director of the illegal underground seminary in Finkenwalde in the latter half of the 1930s, he taught his students a bewildering number of subjects, including a study of Paul. In the winter of 1938–1939 he held a seminar on basic concepts in the New Testament. One such basic concept was that of sin. Since the manuscript of that seminar is no longer extant, we rely on the few notes that students took. The most significant note comes from his friend and later biographer Eberhard Bethge. Bethge notes that regarding “sin,” “sins” and “forgiveness of sins” “there is a difference between singular and plural.” And then he adds the remarkable line: “usage of the concept – never ἄφεσις ἁμαρτίας [‘forgiveness of sin’].”4 Given that we have access now to the complete works of Bonhoeffer in 16 volumes, both in German and English, we know that the young theologian had an incredibly clear and engaging mind. It comes of no surprize to me that, Bonhoeffer – who came to the study of Paul as a theologian – takes it as a “basic concept” that sin in Paul is critically predicated on the distinction between sin in the singular and sins in the plural. Tillich too discusses Paul and his understanding of sin in his Systematic Theology. He notes that “Paul often spoke of ‘Sin’ in the singular and without an article. He saw it as a quasi-personal power which ruled this world. But in the Christian churches, both Catholic and Protestant, sin has been used predominantly in the plural, and ‘sins’.”5 Like Bonhoeffer, Tillich also has a keen eye for exegetical details that then inform his theological and philosophical reflections in his many works. Tillich, more than Bonhoeffer, was an existential thinker. 4  Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Theological Education Underground: 1937–1940. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English 15). Edited by Victoria J. Barnett. Translated by Victoria J. Barnett, Claudia D. Bergmann, Peter Frick, Scott A. Moore and Douglas W. Stott. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2012, 344, note 3. 5  Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, 3 vols. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press 1957, vol.  2, 46.

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This first stage in my discovery of Paul was decisive for my subsequent appreciation of Paul, Judaism, theology and philosophy. My own emerging understanding of sin in Paul was not only shared by one of the most eminent contemporary Pauline scholars such as Sanders and Hofius, but also such renowned theological thinkers as Bonhoeffer and Tillich. Their positions gave me confidence to press on and examine Paul with even greater excitement. I can be a Pauline scholar to make sense of Paul or a theologian, I realized. Better yet, I can be both and even add philosophy to my quest.

11.4  The Second Station on the Way: Clarification Once I had become convinced that the issue that Paul addresses is the issue of sin and sins – or more precisely their correlation – I still felt the need to figure out how my insights into Paul and my deep interest in theology and philosophy could be squared. During the time of my discoveries, as described above, I was also increasingly confronted with the claims of the new perspective. That was unavoidable. My view of the new perspective was initially neutral. I was open-minded enough to examine whether I agreed that Paul was not interested in justification by faith. Was it really the case that this doctrine was erroneously declared by Lutheran theologians as Paul’s theological centre but in fact has no bearing in Paul’s letter? And is it really the case that theologians are at best superimposing their dogmatic matrix on Paul while Pauline scholars are the ones who objectively, and that is to say without theological biases, represent Paul in his native Judaism? Moreover, along those lines, is it in fact true that theologians and old perspective scholars almost by default misunderstand Judaism, and by extension Paul? And finally, and for me in fact a pivotal question, could it be the case that – against all odds of the ever-growing multitude of new perspective disciples – that theology and philosophy could clarify the intellectual cohesiveness of the claims of the new perspective? At McMaster, Ed Sanders was of course fully cognizant of the avalanche that his book Paul and Palestinian Judaism had caused. He also knew of the new perspective, but I remember distinctly that he only cautiously supported it. I do not know what his view would be today, whether it has changed or not. Besides Sanders, Ben F. Meyer and Stephen Westerholm taught also at McMaster when I was a student there. While I started my doctoral studies with Meyer as my supervisor until his death, Westerholm in particular left a deep impression on me. Anyone who has read one of his works will immediately see that he is a very clear thinker and excellent

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communicator. As a scholar appreciating the old perspective, his book Perspectives Old and New on Paul,6 is definitely one of the best works evaluating the claims of the new perspective vis-à-vis the old perspective. As a colleague of Sanders, Westerholm was extremely well informed of the revised understanding of Judaism – away from a legalistic religion based on works righteousness to one that is fully reliant on the grace of Yahweh – and took over the best of the revisioning while also being critical of the supposedly radical implications for our understanding of Paul. My own views have been shaped by Westerholm, but we differ on the question of atonement. Notwithstanding the middle ground between Sanders and Westerholm, my curiosity in understanding Paul from a theological and philosophical perspective never diminished.

11.5  Third Station on the Way: Understanding Paul The debate between the old and new perspective, and even other supposedly more radical perspectives, has been going on for many years now. I took notice of the various positions and arguments in these debates, but my interest in Paul was for the greatest part outside of this context. I wanted to understand Paul on my own terms and not because of a perspective, be it an old one or a new one. My take was rather straightforward. A scholarly approach to Paul should be characterized by one’s own reading, analysis and synthesis of the Pauline letters, apart from whatever perspective may be in vogue at the time. For me this journey started with a reflection on a pre-Pauline theme: hermeneutics. The question that intrigued me since my youth was by what criteria we may legitimately make claims to understand the coherence of the Christian faith, and by extension Paul. For reasons I do not need to repeat here, I concluded early on that we do not need to read Paul literally at all costs. We must take seriously what Paul says, but we must reckon with the possible fact that Paul did not say everything on every subject, that he assumed a good deal of knowledge he believed his congregations would know and that the mode of letters was contextual to the point that he may have said even crucial things somewhat inconsistently. As a human agent rather than a divine puppet, the man Paul could potentially also be wrong; he too, like every other human being, is constricted by his ontological condition. 6  Stephen Westerholm, Perspectives Old and New on Paul. The “Lutheran” Paul and His Critics. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 2004.

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While he lives and writes his letters under the lordship of and faith in the risen Messiah and the Spirit, the ontological underside of the power of sin affected also him. Even Paul’s λόγος, ψυχή and σῶμα were not excepted from the reach that sin never gives up in our earthly lives. My discovery that sin and sins are of key importance to Paul and hence the entire Christian tradition entails the view that his whole being was in one way or another the attempt to answer this human predicament. Once I recognized that that issue is ontological, rather than theological or even ethical, I started to make the connection with the early Heidegger, before his Kehre (turning). But this posed an obstacle for me because he was a problematic figure.7 For a long time, I was troubled by the fact that a Nazi philosopher should serve as my philosophical mentor. If only Emmanuel Levinas, Hans Jonas, Hannah Arendt or Hans-Georg Gadamer, who all studied with him, would have written Being and Time, my dilemma would be non-existent. I did not want a Nazi intellectual to suggest how to read the Jewish thinker Paul the apostle. After a prolonged discussion with a philosopher friend, I decided to show my cards and admit to Heidegger’s philosophical influence on my Pauline thinking. But to this day I still feel somewhat uneasy. So why did I go with Heidegger? The reason is obvious: I was attracted not to Heidegger per se but to his philosophical ideas. His thought intrigued me, though not the fact that it is Heidegger’s thought. His ideas about Being and being are true, not because of him, but in spite of him. In a sense, this is exactly his point in Being and Time: that there are universal ontological structures; they are true equally for all human beings everywhere. Once I realized that it was not Heidegger whom I wanted to stand in the spotlight, but his thinking on being vis-à-vis human existence, I took the step to acknowledge that the ontological underpinning of my understanding of Paul is indebted to him. When I embraced the idea that ontological structures are determinative for our existential experiences, I concluded that understanding Paul is not a matter on the cognitive, that is to say interpretive, realm, but on the existential level of everyday life, in the here and now. Or, as Kierkegaard has said so succinctly, in our contemporary existence. Even if there would be a perspective that could perfectly explain everything Paul said, we would understand what Pauline interpreters think about what Paul thought – but 7  Cf.

Eggert Blum, “Die Marke Heidegger. Wie die Familie des Philosophen jahr­ zehntelang versuchte, das Image des umstrittenen Denkers zu kontrollieren und kritische Stimmen klein zu halten,” in Die Zeit, 13 November 2014.

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we would still be removed from understanding Paul in our contemporary existence. Perhaps some people may want nothing more than a historical summary of what Paul did and said, a kind of historical narrative. Fair enough, but, no thanks, not my thing.

11.6  The Penultimate Station: Understanding Existence The logical next step from understanding Pauline theology led me to reflect on my understanding of existence, Dasein, life itself. The more I engrossed myself in the apostle through an existential lens, the more I understood that reading Paul philosophically is not the same as reducing faith to a metaphysical system, a systematized Paul, or any forced perspective, whatever it may be. Theological systematizing and philosophical clarification of Pauline thinking – or biblical thought in general – does not necessarily lead to an emptying of one’s faith, to a compromise of the substance of Paul’s theology, a disfiguration of the Christian tradition or a cheapening of existence. For my part, I employed philosophy, more precisely existential philosophy, to help me overcome the youthful impasse of understanding the Christian tradition, of which I had been a part all my life. It was not the old perspective and not the new perspective; neither opened the intellectual door that I needed to go through in order to understand. The chief insight into my preoccupation with Paul is that an existential understanding of his theological ideas has immediate and tangible implications for contemporary life. When I look at the messy world, I see existential pain and suffering. My own life has had it own share of this, sometimes to the breaking point. Like many Christians, I yearn for more of the new creation to be visible on this earth. It brings sadness to me that the Christian world, whatever that may be in its specific context, is full of existential pain and all too often inflicts that pain. My conviction is that a great deal of this dire state has to do with a misunderstanding of the message of Jesus and Paul. The schisms within the Christian faith are insane and lamentable. The vicious exclusionary spirit of too many a Christian group or church is atrocious. The confusion of the good news with political scammers is all too obvious. The unheard cry of the planet is suicidal. The oppression of the other by Christian ideology is heartbreaking. This generation’s failure to hear the younger generation is reprehensible. All these things have to do with Paul: I have learned through him that all life can only be lived as a fragmentary existence. Our ontological struc-

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tures point the way to our existentiell and ontic pathways, but they do not determine them. As those created free and in God’s image, we can resist the lure of the evil inclination and assume ontic responsibility for a better world. But all our efforts will always and necessarily remain a penultimate and fragmentary effort. Only in the world to come will we encounter complete authenticity and a life beyond fragments.

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Westerholm, Stephen. “The Judaism Paul left behind him,” in Law and Ethics, 369–384. Willaschek, Marcus. “Existenz,” in RGG4 vol.  2, 1812. Wolter, Michael. “Die Liebe,” in Paulus Handbuch, 449–453. Wolter, Michael. “Die Wirklichkeit des Glaubens. Ein Versuch zur Bedeutung des Glaubens bei Paulus,” in Jörg Frey, Benjamin Schliesser and Nadine Ueberschar (eds), Glaube. Das Verständnis des Glaubens im frühen Christentum und in sei­ ner jüdischen und hellenistisch-römischen Umwelt. WUNT 373. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2017, 347–367. Wolter, Michael. “Glaube/Christusglaube,” in Paulus Handbuch 342–347. Wrede, William. Paul. London: Philip Green 1907. Wright, N. T. Justification. God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision. Downers Grove: IVP Academic 2009. Wright, N. T. Pauline Perspectives. Essays on Paul 1978–2013. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2013. Wright, N. T. Paul. In Fresh Perspective. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2009. Wright, N. T. Paul and the Faithfulness of God. Christian Origins and the Question of God, vol.  4. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2013. Wright, N. T. The Climax of the Covenant. Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 1993. Wright, N. T. “The Letter to the Romans,” in The New Interpreter’s Bible, ed. by Leander E. Keck et al. Nashville: Abingdon Press 2002, vol.  10, 395–770. Wright, N. T. What Saint Paul Really Said: Was Paul of Tarsus the Real Founder of Christianity? Oxford: Lion; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 1997. Yoder-Neufeld, Thomas R. Killing Enmity. Violence and the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic 2011. Yoder-Neufeld, Thomas R. Recovering Jesus. The Witness of the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press 2007. Zetterholm, Magnus. Approaches to Paul: A Student’s Guide to Recent Scholarship. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2009. Zetterholm, Magnus. “Paul within Judaism: the State of the Questions,” in Mark D. Nanos and Magnus Zetterholm (eds), Paul within Judaism. Restoring the First-Century Context to the Apostle. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2015, 31–51. Zetterholm, Magnus. The Messiah: in Early Judaism and Christianity. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007. Zimmermann, Jens. Incarnational Humanism. A Philosophy of Culture for the Church in the World. Downers Grove: IVP Academic 2012. Zimmermann, Jens. Recovering Theological Hermeneutics. An IncarnationalTrini­tarian Theory of Interpretation. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic 2004. Zimmermann, Ruben. “Die Ethik der Kirche,” in Paulus Handbuch, 433–439.

Index of Biblical References Hebrew Bible Genesis 1:1 79 1:10 79 1:12 79 1:18 79 1:21 79 1:25 79 1:27 79 1:31 79 2:23–24 79 2:25 79, 275 3 81, 83, 191 4:1 167 6:5 84 8:21 84 Exodus 20:12–17 112 24:7 83 30:10 134 Leviticus 5:5 134 5:10 134 5:13 134 5:16 134 5:18 134 19:18 263 Deuteronomy 4:13 83 7:9 83 21:23 122 27–29 313

1 Kings 8:46 84 Job 25:4 84 Psalms 31:1 87 31:5 85 37:19 85 38:18 85 51 83 51:5 84 89:49 177 92:5 189 102:3 130 103:3 130 Isaiah 27:9 87 45:12 75, 79 48:6–7 225 49:1 121 49:5 121 53 133 55:8–9 189 59:20 87 64:5–9 83 65:17 225 65:19–25 223 Jeremiah 1:5 121 Ezekiel 37:7–12 223

346 Micah 4:12 189 Malachi 2:10 168

New Testament Matthew 1:21 123 3:6 124 5:17–18 145 5:18 29 5:31–32 258 5:44 295 7:26–27 76 8:24–25 7 9:1–6 124 9:2 139 12:31 124, 126 22:37–39 152 26:42 175 27:46 174 Mark 1:4 124 2:1–12 124 2:5 139 12:18–27 152, 184 12:29–31 263 14:36 175 15:34 173 Luke 1:67–79 124 1:69 124 1:71 124 1:77 124 3:3 124 4:21–24 119 5:17–26 124 5:31–32 158 5:32 124 7:11–17 183 7:47–48 139 7:47–49 124

Index of Biblical References

8:40–56 183 10:25–27 152 23:44 174 24:30 183 24:36–37 184 24:45–48 124 John 1:1 79 1:29 125, 126 1:41 119 2:24 124 2:25 125 3:16 125, 127, 279 4:23–24 290 4:25 119 6:39–40 183 8:21 125 8:24 126 8:32 58 8:34 126 8:45 58 9:41 126 11 183 14:6 56 14:17 58, 290 15:26 58 16:7 58 16:13 58, 290 17:17 58 18:38 55 19:30 174 20:19 184 20:26 184 Acts 2:24 181 2:32 181 2:38 125 3:15 181 3:26 181 4:10 181 5:30 181 5:31 124 7:60 125 9:2 120

Index of Biblical References

9:22 120 10:40 181 10:43 125 13:30 181 13:33 181 13:34 181 13:37 181 13:38 125 18:3 6 22:4 120 24:14 120 24:22 120 26:9 120 26:18 125 Romans 1 280 1:2 29 1:3–5 205 1:5 22, 205, 210 1:7 232 1:9 155, 210 1:16 59, 61, 155, 204, 207 1:16–17 199 1:17 42, 294 1:17–18 63 1:18 87 1:18–3:20 94 1:20 79 2:1 267, 268 2:2–3 78 2:5 78, 87 2:7 229 2:9–10 204 2:17–24 258 2:19–20 258 2:22–23 258 2:29 259 3–7 194 3:3 201 3:4 191 3:4–26 313 3:5–6 194 3:7 169 3:9 88, 94, 110, 143, 172, 204 3:20 148

347

3:21 147, 169, 294 3:21–25 149 3:22 199, 201 3:22–24 171 3:23 139, 143 3:24 172, 186 3:25 132, 136, 169, 294 3:25–26 42 3:26 14, 202 3:28 199, 294 3:30 199 3:31 294 4:3 29 4:6 169 4:7 87 4:9 203 4:11 204 4:13–14 204 4:16 204 4:17 169, 228 4:25 134, 187 5 187 5–7 134 5:1 42, 171, 172, 281, 294 5:5 169, 173, 290 5:6 142 5:8 86, 87, 142, 143, 169, 173, 266 5:9 135 5:10 142 5:12 82, 90, 91, 101, 137, 148, 182 5:12–14 81 5:13 92, 147, 148 5:13–14 147 5:15 90, 171, 172, 186 5:16 187 5:16–17 78, 137 5:17 148, 171, 172, 187 5:19 81, 82, 90, 183 5:20 148, 172, 187 5:21 89, 90, 137, 148, 171, 172, 229, 294 6:3–4 235 6:4 181 6:8–10 171 6:9 192

348

Index of Biblical References

6:10 144 6:12 149 6:14–15 172 6:15 88 6:16 137, 205 6:17 89, 227 6:18 91 6:19 149 6:20 89, 227 6:21 90 6:22 91, 229 6:23 90, 91, 137, 148, 229 7 293, 317 7:4 181 7:5 87, 149 7:7 147, 148 7:8 147, 148, 149 7:9 101 7:9–10 90 7:12 146 7:13 78, 91 7:13–20 135 7:14 88, 95, 146 7:15 96 7:16 146 7:17 88, 95, 96 7:18 89 7:19 95 7:20 75, 95, 96 7:23 89, 90, 91, 96 8:1 171 8:1–2 222 8:1–17 210 8:2 91, 263 8:3 135, 150, 169, 183 8:4 152 8:7–8 150 8:9 89, 181, 210, 290 8:9–11 222 8:11 89, 181, 290 8:14 210 8:15 210 8:16 210 8:17 232 8:18–23 91 8:19–23 79, 226, 227

8:28 169 8:29 232 8:34 181 8:35 173 8:37–39 222, 284 8:38–39 171 8:39 173 9:1 290 9:3–5 35 9:15–18 169 9:17 29 9:25 232 10:1 135 10:3 186 10:4 151, 152 10:9 219 10:10 219 10:9–13 237 10:10 239 10:10–13 239 10:11 29 10:12 204 10:14–15 208 10:15 208 10:16 208 10:17 207 11:2 29 11:13 22 11:15 279 11:27 87 11:28 232 11:32 169 12:3 169, 200 12:21 259 13:8 264, 269 13:10 264 13:11 230 14 271 14:13 258 15:4 29 15:13–16 290 15:15–16 210 16:19 259 16:20 169 16:25 205 16:26 29

Index of Biblical References

1 Corinthians 1:2 173, 231, 232 1:4 173 1:6 122 1:14–16 235 1:17 234 1:21 169 1:22–24 204 1:23 122 1:27 169 1:28 169 1:30 308 2:1 122, 153 2:1–13 211 2:2 122 2:4–5 211 2:5 199 2:10–12 169 2:10–13 211 3:10 6 3:11 7, 171 3:16 89 4:6 269 5:13 169 6:1 270 6:11 170 6:14 169 7 259 7:1 14 7:10 258 7:28 232 7:29 230 7:31 232 7:38 259 8:6 170 9:14 258 9:16 121 9:21 152 9:22 282 10:18 135 10:24 269 10:29 270 11:17–34 237 11:23 27 11:23–26 237 11:27 194

12–14 211 12:3 290 12:12 231 12:13 204 12:27 231 13 210, 265, 273, 274 13:1 265 13:2 265 13:4–8 264 13:9–10 221 13:10 221, 320 13:13 275 14:5 259 14:17 267 14:20 44 15 35, 184, 233 15:1–7 132 15:1–20 180 15:2–4 29 15:3 27, 87 15:3–4 132, 133 15:4 174 15:12 123, 184 15:14 123 15:15 180 15:17 87, 94, 123, 133 15:18 123 15:19 135 15:20–21 182 15:26 177, 295 15:29 235, 237 15:53 178 15:54 179 15:54–55 179 15:55 184 15:56 91, 178 15:57 170 2 Corinthians 1:1 232 1:19 122 1:19–20 170 1:21 170 2:14 170 2:15 170 3:6 211

349

350

Index of Biblical References

4:2 60 4:5 122 4:11–12 170 4:14 170 5 224 5:1 229 5:1–5 226 5:4 229 5:10 78, 259, 282 5:14 266 5:14–15 226 5:17 42, 219, 220, 224, 225, 226, 232, 253, 255 5:17–18 295 5:18 171 5:19 171, 279 5:20 171 6:2 230 6:7 58, 60 6:16 232 10:5 24 10:14 171 11:4 208 13.4 171 13:11 173 13:12 232 Galatians 1:1 22, 120, 181 1:3 230 1:3–4 133, 143 1:4 86, 94, 134 1:6–7 60 1:6–9 208 1:11 121 1:11–12 208 1:12 63 1:14 27, 146 1:15–16 121 2 59 2:5 59, 208 2:8 22 2:11–14 204 2:14 59, 208 2:16 42, 171, 202 2:20 171, 266

2:21 151, 171, 173 3 151, 195 3:1 60 3:6 169, 204 3:6–14 35 3:7 232 3:7–9 205 3:8 29 3:16 232 3:17 151 3:19 232 3:21 194 3:21–25 149 3:22 29, 88, 110, 150, 172, 195 3:24 151 3:26 171, 232 3:26–29 232 3:27 235 3:28 204, 225, 269 4:4 169 4:6 169 4:9 169 4:30 29 5 306 5:4 173 5:6 152 5:13 152 5:14 152 6:2 152, 244, 262, 263 6:4 270 6:8 229 6:10 14 6:14 225 6:15 225 Ephesians 1:7 127 1:9 153 1:13 60 1:19–20 182 2:8 187 2:9 187 3:3–9 153 4 225 4:22 225 4:24 225

Index of Biblical References

5:16 14 5:23 231 5:32 153 6:19 153 Philippians 1:1 232 2:6–8 175 2:8 170, 175 2:15 232 2:17 135 3:9 186 4:18 135 Colossians 1:5 60 1:13 196, 127, 134 1:14 127 1:15–16 79 1:26–27 153 2:2 153 2:12 127 2:13 127 2:14 127 3:9–10 225 4:3 153 4:5 14 1 Thessalonians 1:1 122, 231 1:4 232 1:5 290 1:9 157, 181 1:9–10 77, 169 1:10 87, 170, 282 2:12 169 2:13 61 2:16 87 4 30 4:8 290 4:13–18 229, 282 4:14 169, 170 4:15 258 5:9 78, 169, 171 5:21 320

1 Timothy 2:5–6 183 2 Timothy 1:10 184, 228 2:8 181 2:13 201 Hebrews 2:17 135 5:1 135 5:9 157 5:11 26 9:15 128 9:22 128 9:25–28 143 10:12 128 10:17 128 10:18 128 12:2 200 13:20 135 James 2:8 264 1 Peter 1:19 136 2 Peter 3:13 224 3:15–16 26 1 John 1:7 136 2:1–2 128 2:2 129 3:5 125 4:10 129, 141 5:6 136, 290 Revelation 1:5 135 21:1 224 21:4–5 282

351

Index of Names Agamben, Giorgio  13, 14, 57, 80, 224, 255, 305 Aguiar de Sousa, Luís  240 Alexander, Philip S.  191 Alma, Filippo  271 Arendt, Hannah  68, 326 Aristotle  58, 164, 165, 168, 169, 170, 172, 173, 196, 227 Assel, Heinrich  36 Attridge, Harold  128 Augustine  53, 61, 96, 97, 101, 102, 318 Avemarie, Friedrich  30, 174, 180, 191 Bahl, Patrick  104 Baltes, Matthias  164, 166, 167 Barrett, C. K.  42 Barrett, William  4, 50, 53, 65, 115 Barth, Karl  31, 32, 55, 65, 66, 67, 99, 100, 131, 172, 197, 206, 306–310, 323 Baum, Armin D.  119 Baum, Matthias  9, 15, 23 Bayer, Oswald  108, 111 Beck, Richard  91 Becker, Eve-Marie  24 Becker, Jürgen  39, 98, 99, 221 Beintker, Michael  282 Beker, Christiaan J.  39, 174, 179 Ben-Chorin, Schalom  145, 263, 264 Benjamin, Walter  10, 55 Bethge, Eberhard  129, 323 Betz, Hans Dieter  133, 134, 262, 263 Beyerle, Stefan  36 Biemel, Walter  47 Bird, Michael F.  302, 314 Blum, Eggert  326 Boer, Roland  14 Bonhoeffer, Dietrich  13, 19, 31, 32, 52,

62, 63, 110, 111, 129, 197, 209, 210, 249, 255, 267–273, 278, 279, 281, 283, 296, 320, 323, 324 Böttrich, Christfried  36, 184 Braunschweig, Michael U.  260 Brett, Mark G.  243 Breytenbach, Cilliers  36, 129 Breton, Stanislas  29, 52 Brondos, David A.  131, 132, 139 Brown, David  65 Brown, Raymond E.  124 Bultmann, Rudolf  15, 16, 19, 20, 22, 23, 32, 39, 44–50, 57, 61–63, 65–68, 97, 174, 185, 197, 206, 207, 252, 253, 288, 302, 305, 318 Campbell, Douglas A.  189 Caputo, John  37 Carson, Donald A.  27, 93, 136, 191 Charlesworth, James H.  119 Crowe, Benjamin  318 Dahlfert, Ingolf U.  15, 23, 321 Davis, W. D.  85 De Boer, Martinus C.  177 Deines, Roland  27 Derrida, Jacques  96 Descartes  51, 288 Diamond, James A.  27, 80, 177 Di Cesare, Donatella  272, 287, 289, 296, 297 Dilthey, Wilhelm  11 Dinkler, Erich  57, 97, 188 Dörrie, Heinrich  166 Donaldson, Terence L.  5, 39, 163, Dunn, James D. G.  39, 91, 93, 163, 306, 307, 316

Index of Names

Eastman, Brad  163, 172 Ehrensperger, Kathy  270 Eichholz, Georg  24, 39 Engberg-Pedersen, Troels  28, 168, 187 Fabricius, Steffi  5, 100, 101, 104, 105 Fackenheim, Emil L.  117, 141, 144 Farandos, Georgios D.  166 Figal, Günter  Frey, Jörg  27, 30, 31, 36, 141, 192, 201, 202, 229, 282, 316 Frick, Peter  14, 34, 68, 100, 111, 129, 210, 227, 292, 318, 320, 322, 323 Fuchs, Ernst  3, 65 Gadamer, Hans-Georg  9–12, 14–20, 23, 25, 44, 46, 49, 61, 62, 67, 70, 154, 178, 179, 254, 268, 270–273, 287, 289, 290, 296, 297, 305, 320, 326 Gathercole, Simon J.  131, 132, 136–138, 140, 144 Gese, Hartmut  25, 137, 321 Gorman, Michael J.  135 Grenz, Stanley J.  47, 176 Gutiérrez, Gustavo  113, 244 Haacker, Klaus  121 Hammann, Konrad  46 Harink, Douglas  35, 269 Hegel, G. W. F.  141, 144, 157, 281, 283 Heidegger, Martin  4, 12, 16, 38, 46–54, 56–58, 62, 63, 65, 67–69, 80, 97, 103, 105–109, 112, 176–178, 197, 212, 213, 252, 253, 266, 267, 288, 301, 305, 306, 318, 326 Heilig, Christoph  302, 314, 316 Hengel, Martin  93, 132, 138, 174, 321 Hewitt, J. Thomas  302, 314 Hinkelammert, Franz J.  244 Hofius, Otfried  37, 59, 60, 64, 93, 94, 99, 137, 140, 145, 148, 150, 151, 162, 177, 178, 180, 183–186, 191, 192, 198, 199, 201, 203, 207, 208, 210–212, 227, 228, 321, 324 Hurtado, Larry  4, 33, 168

353

Jenks, R. Gregory  139, 177 Jennings, Theodore W. Jr.  96, 152 Jervis, L. Ann  98, 99 Jonas, Hans  68, 97, 326 Josephus  34, 184 Jüngel, Eberhard  44, 101, 178, 321 Käsemann, Ernst  45, 67, 135, 136, 188, 304, 305 Kant, Immanuel  258 Kierkegaard, Søren  13, 14, 55, 65, 68, 108, 250–253, 257, 279, 305, 318, 326 Kim, Seyoon  302 Kirwan, Michael  12 Knierim, Rolf  82, 83, 85 Kodalle, Klaus-M.  65, Kollmann, Bernd  95, 120, 121, 146, Kraus, Wolfgang  36, 192, 232 Kuhn, Peter  135 Lacan, Jacques  254 Laato, Timo  93, Lam, Joseph  82 Landmesser, Christof  47–50, 56, 59, 65, 103, 107, 108, 172, 176, 198, 252, 253 Lategan, Bernard C.  8, 10 Lee, Aquila H. I.  314 Levinas, Emmanuel  54, 67, 70, 92, 131, 176, 267, 270–273, 296, 326 Lichtenberger, Hermann  174, 180 Löhr, Hermut  256 Lonergan, Bernard J. F.  8 Lotz, Johannes B.  65, 68 Lugioyo, Brian  36 Luther, Martin  52, 53, 97, 131, 157, 197, 222, 318 Marcuse, Herbert  275, 276 Martyn, J. L.  144 Mell, Ulrich  225 Meiser, Martin  262 Messner, Kathrin  8 Metzner, Rainer  125 Moltmann, Jürgen  161, 162, 174, 278, 321

354

Index of Names

Moore, Stephen D.  129 Mussner, Franz  263 Nanos, Mark D.  32, 33, 54, 163 Nickelsburg, George W. E.  180 Niebuhr, Karl-Wilhelm  36 Nietzsche, Friedrich  14, 292 Novenson, Matthew V.  314 O’Brian, Peter T.  191 O’Collins, Gerald G.  163 Odell-Scott, David  270 Pelagius  97, 102 Peterson, Erik  57 Philo of Alexandria  34, 38, 68, 79, 165–173, 196, 197, 227, 294, 321 Plato  58, 80, 165–167, 178, 227, 296 Pokorný, Petr  10, 12, 22, 70 Quell, Gottfried  80–83 Quadros Gouvêa, Ricardo  VIII Ratzinger, Joseph (Pope Benedict XVI) 104 Rehfeld, Emmanuel L.  119 Reynolds, Benjamin E.  36 Ricoeur, Paul  8, 10, 11, 36 Ridderbos, Herman  39, 163 Roskovec, Jan  10, 12, 22, 70 Rosenau, Hartmut  46, 47, 49, 50, 62, 70 Runia, David  166 Salamun, Kurt  37 Sanders, E. P.  5, 32–35, 39, 82, 85, 93, 133, 140, 146, 149, 153, 161, 163, 194, 220, 280, 297, 298, 311, 321–325 Sänger, Dieter  187 Schäfer, Peter  28 Schleiermacher, F. D.  11, 190, 290 Schnelle, Udo  16, 20, 21, 236, 237 Schoeps, Hans Joachim  119 Schweitzer, Albert  307 Schröter, Jens  22, 95 Segal, Alan F.  28, 35, 121, 187 Sellin, Gerhard  181 Seifrid, Mark A.  191

Šimsa, Martin  12 Standhartinger, Angela  30 Stanley, Christopher D.  98 Stellino, Paolo  240 Stemberger, Günther  27 Stendahl, Krister  53, 54, 230, 318 Sterling, Gregory E.  171 Strack H. L.  27 Stuhlmacher, Peter  135, 321 Talmon, Shemaryahu  119 Taubes, Jacob  55, Tertullian  197, 234–237 Theobald, Michael  155 Thielicke, Helmut  51, 67, 68 Tillich, Paul  97, 107, 108, 179, 211–214, 262, 265–267, 294, 323, 324 Tobin, Thomas H.  166 Tomson, Peter J.  145 Tuckett, C. M.  130 Vanhoozer, Kevin J.  36 Vattimo, Gianni  213, 305 Volf, Miroslav  240 Waldenfels, Bernhard  271 Wedderburn, Alexander J. M.  78, 129, 130, 132, 173–175, 185 Weder, Hans  206 Weiss, Hans-Friedrich  166 Westerholm, Stephen  53, 85, 150, 164, 189, 190, 195, 230, 252, 256, 302, 316, 318, 324, 325 Willaschek, Marcus  68 Wolter, Michael  202, 203, 264, 266 Wright, N. T.  5, 22, 28, 39, 129, 135, 164, 188, 192, 193, 195, 196, 201, 205, 211, 301, 302, 304–307, 310–318 Yoder-Neufeld, Thomas R.  130 Zetterholm, Magnus  32, 53, 54, 119, 163 Zimmermann, Jens  11, 52, 54, 55, 222, 272 Zimmermann, Ruben  256, 257, 259

Index of Subjects Abraham  147, 151, 195, 203–205, 232, 237, 298, 314, 315 Adam  63, 80–82, 86, 90, 101, 110, 111, 147, 177, 178, 183, 209, 227, 228, 230, 311, 312 Alterity  267, 271, 295, 296 Anxiety  103, 108, 109, 114, 253 Apocalyptic/al  22, 30, 144, 230, 233, 259, 282, 302, 316 Atone/ment  77, 86, 102, 118, 125, 129–132, 134–141, 143, 144, 153–155 Authentic/Authenticity  47, 53, 54, 57, 58, 61–63, 70, 79–81, 86, 88, 94, 102, 103, 105–108, 114, 157, 177, 178, 186, 201, 206, 231, 250–255, 264–266, 273, 275, 280, 282, 298, 306, 317, 328 Author  26, 64, 86, 123, 126, 128, 135, 157, 159, 161, 182, 185, 225 Baptism  95, 234–239 Being/being  3, 13, 17, 20, 29, 33, 43, 46–54, 56–58, 62, 63, 67–70, 77, 79, 80, 82 84, 89–95, 99–111, 113, 114, 121, 137, 144, 155, 176, 178, 180, 185, 192, 196, 197, 199, 201, 209, 212–214, 222, 236, 247, 253, 256, 259, 261, 265, 273, 275, 278, 288–293, 297, 313, 318, 326 Being and Time  4, 12, 47–58, 63, 69, 103, 105–109, 176, 178, 326 Biblical studies  31, 36, 37, 65, 103

Christology/-logical  4, 33, 35, 45, 76, 112, 115, 132, 133, 135, 146, 156, 168, 170, 180, 183, 190, 195, 260, 302, 314 Christophany  24, 41, 121, 145, 146, 168 Church  28, 29, 53, 97, 114, 115, 117, 119, 122, 124, 154, 170, 182, 184, 205, 230–234, 239, 244, 246, 250, 253, 259, 260, 267, 281, 304, 321, 323, 327 Colonial/ization  98, 99, 242, 247, 250 Conscience  103, 270, 318 Contemporary/Contemporaneousness  4, 6, 8, 9, 12–16, 19–22, 24–28, 33, 39, 40, 51, 54, 70, 79, 85, 97, 103, 120, 140, 154, 158, 161, 162, 165, 167, 185, 197, 227, 232, 251–253, 257, 260, 267, 277–279, 281, 287, 291, 294, 305, 314, 317, 318, 324, 326, 327 Conversation/Gespräch  12, 98, 135, 246, 273, 296, 297, 301, 307 Correlation/Correspondence  3, 6, 31, 38, 42, 43, 51, 63, 66, 75, 92, 100, 115, 118, 128, 138, 146, 151, 158, 159–161, 168, 173, 174, 176, 196, 200, 228, 231, 234, 291, 293, 311, 315, 316, 317, 324 Creation (new)  31, 34, 36, 42, 71, 79–84, 90, 92, 123, 165–167, 169, 172, 173, 177, 190–193, 195–197, 212, 214, 220–233, 245, 247, 252, 253, 255, 259, 277, 278, 283, 284, 294, 295, 312, 313, 315, 316, 327 Culture 98

Catholic/ism  22, 30, 246, 250, 323 Cause  86, 91, 115, 157, 164–173, 186, 188, 199, 200, 203, 283, 294 Christianity  5, 13, 22, 28, 31, 35, 36, 52, 97, 180, 187, 251, 252, 292, 305

Dasein  5, 12, 38, 47–54, 56–58, 61–63, 69, 70, 77, 78, 103, 105–109, 113, 121, 138, 148, 160–162, 176–178, 198, 222, 240, 253, 254, 256, 257, 261, 263, 266, 274, 275, 288, 303, 320, 327

356

Index of Subjects

Death  10, 24, 27, 34, 40–43, 55, 63, 64, 77, 78, 80, 81, 86, 87, 89–93, 98, 100–104, 108, 113, 116, 117–119, 123–144, 147–151, 153–155, 157–162, 168, 171–180, 182–189, 193, 194, 196, 198, 200, 203, 212, 213, 219–231, 233–239, 247–249, 252–254, 263, 265, 266, 275, 277, 280–284, 288, 291–295, 298, 303, 310, 312–316, 319, 324 Deconstruction  57, 278 Deontological 257–262 Disclosedness  13, 53, 61, 62, 70, 92, 103, 111, 271 Economic/al  28, 54, 113, 234, 241, 243–245, 250 Enlightenment  17, 18, 258 Environment/al  113, 229, 274, 278 Epistemology/epistemological  18, 52, 55, 56, 66, 69, 111, 140, 169, 206–213, 271, 278, 309 Eros  10, 255, 273–277, 296 Ethics/ethical  6, 41, 43, 51, 56, 58, 60, 76, 86, 92, 100–102, 107, 112, 115, 118, 125, 129, 138, 149, 151, 155, 156, 158–163, 185, 189, 191, 198, 202, 206, 214, 230, 245, 246, 255–266, 270–273, 277, 278, 280, 289, 293, 295, 303, 315, 323, 326 Exegesis/exegetical  8–12, 16, 36, 38, 40, 54, 59, 88, 95 153, 160, 167, 168, 240, 293, 308, 309, 323 Existence/existential  3–6, 8, 9, 11–15, 16, 19, 20, 22, 24, 25, 30, 32, 33, 38–58, 60–70, 73, 75–81, 90–99, 101–110, 112, 113, 115–117, 121, 139, 148, 150, 151, 154, 155, 158, 160–162, 176–178, 188, 191, 193, 197, 205–207, 209, 212, 213, 217, 219–257, 259–262, 264–267, 271–273, 275–280, 282, 283, 287– 290, 292–295, 297, 298, 301–306, 310, 313, 314, 316–320, 322, 323, 326, 327 Existentiell  50, 51, 62, 91, 101, 103, 108, 139, 176, 213, 240, 288, 292, 328

Existenzial  4, 5, 12, 42, 43, 49, 50, 56, 75, 80, 97, 102–112, 115, 117, 213, 253, 266, 267 Facticity  48, 49, 52, 69, 89, 105 Faith  6, 15, 40–42, 51, 52, 59–61, 64, 87, 88, 99, 107, 111, 117, 123, 130, 136, 140, 141, 144, 145, 147, 149, 151, 152, 154, 155, 158, 161, 162, 164, 165, 168, 170, 171, 170, 177, 179, 182, 184, 187, 197–215, 219, 221–223, 229, 231, 232, 236–239, 249, 251–253, 255, 259–261, 263, 265, 266, 273–277, 280–282, 290, 292, 294, 295, 298, 303, 305, 315, 318, 324–327 Fall/enness/Verfallenheit  31, 67, 80–83, 92, 103, 105–108, 111, 131, 148, 177, 191, 195, 247, 275, 279, 283, 288 Fides qua creditur  205, 206, 221, 252 Fides quae creditur  205, 206, 221 Forgiveness  87, 94, 102, 123–130, 132–136, 138, 139, 141, 143, 144, 154, 161, 194, 196, 213–215, 249, 250, 313, 316, 323 Gentiles  7, 22, 24, 26, 29, 32, 34–36, 59, 76, 78, 87, 94, 95, 99, 102, 120–123, 143, 145, 151, 158, 163, 169, 187, 195, 203–205, 208, 210, 231, 237, 262, 282, 291, 292, 298, 315, 318 Grace  6, 19, 62, 63, 112, 127, 133, 150, 158, 168, 171–173, 185, 186, 187, 191, 192, 197, 199, 200, 205, 207, 210, 229, 249, 251, 279, 281, 282, 294, 325 Greek  14, 34, 38, 57, 59, 61, 68, 80, 88, 99,119, 128, 143, 155, 157, 164, 166, 167, 179, 188, 190, 199, 204, 225, 234, 239, 257, 268, 269, 274, 321 Guilt  83, 95, 131, 138, 139, 194, 195, 255, 280, 281, 298 Hermeneutics/hermeneutical 3–41, 46, 54, 56, 61, 62, 65–71, 76, 82, 87, 88, 91, 103, 119, 120, 134, 145, 154, 167, 168, 173, 178, 179, 185, 189, 190, 197,

Index of Subjects

202, 207, 222, 233, 260, 262, 270, 280, 282, 289, 290, 297, 302, 304, 305, 310, 314, 318, 325 Holy Sprit  58, 60, 66, 89, 181, 209–212, 222, 262, 266, 277, 279, 290, 295 Horizon  15, 27–30, 92, 101, 120, 173, 179, 187, 282 Immortality  178, 179, 184, 185, 228, 229 Indigenous  246, 247, 250 Inauthentic  54, 79, 105–108, 265, 273, 317 Incarnation  45, 123, 124, 153, 154, 211 Interpretation  6, 8–12, 16, 19–21, 23, 26, 27, 30, 32, 33, 40, 41, 51, 52, 58, 65–67, 69, 70, 80, 90, 97, 116, 126, 129, 133, 159, 166–168, 170, 174, 189, 192, 197, 206, 235, 263, 275, 276, 304, 305, 309, 310, 314, 318 Israel  7, 26, 28–30, 33–36, 40, 42, 43, 77, 78, 83, 84, 87, 88, 112, 119, 121, 122, 124, 126, 133, 135, 139, 146, 151, 160, 179, 190, 191, 195, 196, 223, 237, 245, 258, 263, 298, 306, 310–312, 314, 315, 317 Jetztzeit  14 Jew  33, 35, 59, 61, 88, 95, 99, 102, 122, 155, 204, 223, 239, 269 Judaism  7, 27–37, 40, 52–54, 82–87, 112, 134, 153, 154, 161, 163, 165, 263, 272, 292, 297, 308, 316, 321, 322, 324, 325 Justification  118, 151, 155, 164, 171, 172, 186–196, 229, 245, 294, 307, 308, 310, 312, 315, 317, 324 Kenosis  175 Liberation theology  243, 244 Life  5–14, 16, 18, 19, 22–24, 26–30, 33–35, 39, 40, 42, 43, 47, 52, 53–56, 57, 58, 63, 67–70, 75–78, 80, 82, 86, 89–93, 98–105, 107, 110–121, 123,

357

124, 130, 133, 138–141, 144, 145, 148–151, 154, 155, 157, 159, 160, 168–174, 176–181, 183–185, 188, 189, 191, 193–195, 205, 210, 211, 213, 214, 219–226, 228, 229, 235–237, 239–243, 245, 247–250, 251–253, 255–284, 287–289, 291–295, 297, 298, 303, 310, 313, 314, 316–318, 320–322, 326–328 Love  43, 67, 71, 76, 83, 90, 129, 141, 142, 152, 169–171, 173, 187, 197, 222, 223, 226, 262–267, 269, 270, 272–277, 281–284, 295, 296, 298 Means, the  100, 150, 155, 157–197, 198–200, 203, 207, 213, 214, 219, 221, 230, 234, 236, 238, 239, 255, 293–295, 322 Messiah/Messianic  3–7, 14, 23, 24, 26–28, 31, 35, 40–43, 45, 53, 60, 64, 71, 75, 78, 86, 87, 90, 98–100, 102, 116–157, 162, 168, 177, 179, 184, 190–193, 195, 196, 198, 202, 203, 205, 207, 208, 214, 220, 228–231, 233, 237, 239, 241, 245, 255, 262–267, 273, 275, 277, 279, 282, 283, 291, 312–317, 319, 326 Metaphysics/metaphysical  44, 45, 106, 166, 168, 171, 197, 278, 327 Mode, the  20, 21, 47, 80, 107, 162, 176, 198–215, 219, 230, 234, 236, 238, 239, 255, 291, 293, 294, 303, 325 Moses  81, 146, 147, 151 Neighbour  112, 152, 263–265, 271, 273–275, 295 Nihilism  10, 14, 240 Nothingness 161 Nudity/nude  57, 79, 80, 222, 271, 272 Ontic/ontical/ontisch  25, 50, 51, 91, 101, 103, 105, 106, 108, 109, 112, 113, 161, 189, 206, 213, 240, 272, 288, 292, 303, 328 Ontology  45, 47, 49, 54, 56, 104, 105, 110, 112, 114, 15, 139, 140, 176, 179,

358

Index of Subjects

200, 213, 214, 236, 247, 255–261, 272, 287, 288, 291, 293–295, 301, 309 Other, the  43, 56, 114, 184, 240, 255, 267–276, 278, 281, 290, 295, 296, 298, 327 Perfectionism, moral  43, 102, 135, 155, 255, 261, 262, 265 Perspectives  5, 13, 19, 22, 25, 27, 32, 33, 36–38, 43, 46, 51, 69, 70, 76, 104, 159, 163, 168, 185, 192, 203, 212, 230, 232, 249, 265, 266, 273, 287, 293, 297, 301–319, 322, 324–327 Pharisees  27, 28, 34, 126, 145, 146, 258, 322 Phenomenology/phenomenological 3, 31, 48–51, 62, 91, 97, 106, 110, 189, 214, 222, 239, 240, 288, 291–293 Philosophy/philosophical  6, 9, 13, 17, 19, 22, 25, 33, 37–40, 46–48, 51, 55, 57, 65–70, 78, 80, 90, 97, 103, 108, 111, 141, 153, 160, 165–170, 173, 196, 197, 209, 213, 252, 270, 272, 273, 288, 290, 293, 301, 304, 305, 314, 321, 323–327 Plight  4, 5, 38, 41, 43, 70, 75, 77, 86, 88, 93, 100, 116, 138, 151, 154, 159, 161, 172, 174, 183, 186, 190, 195, 196, 200, 209, 291–293, 298, 306, 311, 312, 315–317, 319, 322 Political  55, 101, 113, 114, 140, 241, 243–245, 247, 248, 250, 276, 316, 327 Postmodern  19, 36, 53, 55, 107, 213, 244, 245, 257, 272, 305 Prejudice/Vorurteil  10, 16–19, 21, 31, 40, 69, 144, 243, 302 Protestant/ism  30, 61, 323 Psychoanalytical 95 Reality  3, 4, 8, 11, 13, 14, 26, 33, 41, 45–47, 52, 54, 55, 57, 59, 66, 76, 78, 90, 91, 93, 98–101, 106–108, 110, 111 148, 155, 158–160, 162, 174, 193, 198, 200, 203, 205, 209, 212–214, 220–222, 228, 233, 234, 239, 241,

244, 247, 252, 253, 261–263, 277–279, 288, 295, 298, 313 Reformation  18, 30 Religion  212, 325 Representation/representative  27, 53, 131, 139–142, 144, 155, 312, 315 Resurrection  11, 24, 27, 34, 35, 43, 86, 87, 90, 93, 98, 100, 102, 116–118, 123, 124, 126 127, 139, 140, 141, 144, 154, 157, 158, 160, 162, 168, 171, 172, 176, 179–187, 189, 192, 193, 198, 199, 203, 211, 213, 219–221, 225–229, 233, 235, 236, 238, 239, 259, 277, 282, 294, 295, 298, 310, 312, 315, 316 Revelation  23, 38, 61–65, 110, 111, 121, 168, 205, 209, 214, 224, 278 Sacrifice  118, 125, 128, 129, 133, 135–139, 141, 143, 144 Seinsverständnis 48 Seinsweise 17 Self-understanding  28, 61–63, 65, 70, 107, 119, 145, 212 Sexuality/sexual  101, 114, 149, 160, 233, 234, 246, 273, 274, 280, 281  Sinfulness/sinful  59, 62, 90, 93, 94, 101, 111, 125, 149, 150, 152, 204, 209, 241, 242, 245, 246, 279, 292 Soteriology/soteriological  5, 6, 39, 45, 76, 85, 92, 93, 100, 115, 116, 119, 123, 138, 145, 151, 152, 156, 157–215, 262, 263, 270, 294, 295, 302, 322 Speech-event 23 Structures  4, 38, 45, 48–52, 54, 56–58, 68, 69, 79, 103, 104, 110, 112–115, 160, 176, 177, 220, 222, 223, 226, 228, 229, 231, 232, 234, 241–247, 250, 253, 261, 265, 280, 288, 289, 291, 292, 295, 318, 326 Substitution/ary  118, 131, 132, 137, 139, 141, 142 Teleological  257–259, 261 Temporality/temporal  54, 103, 176–178, 183, 293

Index of Subjects

Text/textual  3, 8–11, 16, 23, 32, 37, 55, 65–67, 69, 70, 82, 85, 119, 133, 139, 158, 159, 161, 165, 167, 168, 224–226, 242, 256, 296, 303, 310 Theology/theological  4–9, 11–13, 15–17, 19, 22–24, 27, 28, 30–42, 44–53, 55, 56, 58, 61–69, 75, 76, 78, 82, 91–94, 96, 97, 99–101, 103, 106–108, 110–113, 117–119, 121, 124–126, 129, 130, 133, 134, 137, 139, 140, 145, 148, 150, 153–155, 158–163, 170–172, 174, 177, 180, 183–190, 195, 197–199, 204–206, 212, 226, 229, 234–238, 243–245, 249, 251–253, 255, 256, 261, 266, 273, 280, 282, 283, 290, 292, 293, 298, 301–308, 310, 311, 314–316, 318, 321, 323–327 Time  13–15, 30, 50, 80, 86, 92, 102, 229, 230, 233, 255, 289, 296 Torah  6, 7, 24, 26, 27, 29, 35, 38, 42, 76, 77, 82, 86–88, 90–92, 102, 117, 120, 121, 133, 134, 139, 144–157, 163, 186, 191, 193, 195, 198, 223, 256–258, 262–264, 312, 314–316, 321 Totalzusammenhang  9, 16, 18 Transcendence/transcendental 111, 177, 197, 213, 266, 270 Truth  11–13, 15, 18, 23, 25, 31, 38, 41, 44–71, 77, 79–81, 97, 103, 104, 110,

359

111, 161, 172, 179, 202, 208, 209, 212, 219, 221, 222, 236, 238, 253, 258, 264, 289, 290, 306, 321 Understanding  3–6, 8–29, 31–49, 51–56, 58, 59, 61–63, 65–70, 75, 76, 79, 80, 82, 83, 86, 87, 89, 93, 94, 96–98, 100–104, 107, 109–111, 113, 115, 117–119, 125, 126, 130, 131, 133, 134, 143–146, 148, 151, 153–155, 159, 161, 162, 165, 167, 168, 170, 174, 176, 185, 188, 189, 191, 193, 196, 197, 203, 204, 208–212, 217, 225, 229, 233–240, 242, 246–248, 251–253, 255, 257–259, 266, 272, 273, 276–278, 287–291, 294, 296–298, 301–306, 310, 311, 313, 315, 317–319, 322–327 Universal/ism/ity  4, 5, 12, 38, 49–52, 61, 64, 69, 78, 81, 84, 91, 97, 99, 104, 106, 110, 112, 113, 125, 128, 140, 141, 153, 177, 189, 224–227, 230, 234, 236, 239, 247, 253, 265, 266, 282, 288, 290, 292, 293, 311, 312, 326 Unveiling 70 Verstehen  10–12, 16, 21, 23, 32, 48, 62, 66, 103, 109, 287, 289, 307